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POULTRY 

GUIDE 

POST 





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POULTRY GUIDE POST 



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POULTRY 
GUIDE POST 



BY 

PH I LI P R. PARK 



ILLUSTRATED BY 
HENRY C. GROVER 



PUBLISHED BY 
THE PARK & POLLARD COMPANY 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



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COPYRIGHT 1912 BY 

THE PARK & POLLARD COMPANY 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



PRESS OF 

THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL 

AUGUSTA, MAINE 



feaA320172 



FOREWORD 



HILE the terms used in the following pages are 
in most cases descriptive of common articles 
of trade, the names may be new to some of 
our readers so we take this opportunity to ex- 
plain our meaning more clearly. 

Egg 'Feed as used herein refers to a mixture 
of ground grain, corn, wheat, oats, barley or 
kaffir corn mixed with mill feeds, bran, mid- 
dlings or shorts, ground Alfalfa, a little salt and 
some animal matter like meat scraps or finely 
ground fish, ( a non oily variety preferred ). 
This mixture is not to be fed wet but abso- 
lutely dry in proper dishes or feeding devices 
kept constantly before the birds. 



Scratch Feed is the name used for a combination of wheat, oats, 
barley, cracked corn, buckwheat, kaffir corn and sunflower seeds. 
Other combinations may be used and the proportion and quantity 
of the grains will necessarily vary from time to time, with the 
market. Always be careful that the feed contains nothing musty, 
mouldy or tainted. 

Chick feed means a mixture of small sized cracked grain and 
seeds, and usually consists of cracked wheat, corn, kaffir, millet, 
canary seed, oats, — and in some of the best a little dried fish, which 
acts as a relish and stimulant. 




Growing Feed is a mixture of whole grains ground together 
with meat food added before grinding. It makes a wonderfully 
effective feed when properly prepared. 



Foreword 

System 

Pointers 

Income 

Opportunity 

Feeding 

Housing - 

Don'ts 




CONTENTS 



Page One 

Page eighteen 

Page sixty-nine 

Page eighty-five 

Page One hundred one 

Page One hundred seventeen 

Page One hundred thirty-one 





OU have all heard of the 
famous sayings of Louis D. 
Brandeis, during the recent 
rate hearings before the 
Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission at Washington, — 
that he could show the rail- 
road managers of this coun- 
try wherein they could save 

, a million dollars per day in 

ch(^S \ their expense accounts. 

We are equally certain 
that we could show the 
poultrymen of this country 
wherein they could save for 
themselves an equal amount, and when saved it 
means much more than the corresponding in- 
crease in their profit account, for in many cases 
it signifies the doubling or trebling of the profit, 
and in most instances, the turning of what had 
been losses into good profits. 

Professor Adams, of the Rhode Island Agri- 
cultural Experimental Station, recently made the 
statement that if the corn growing literature and 



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Page One 



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lectures going on in this country had increased 
the yield one kernel per ear, this added increase 
would amount to $1,800,000.00 in the pockets of 
the farmers of the United States. 

Now we are going^o show you where you can 
increase your efficiency 10% to 50%, and if this 
II is extended to every poultryman in the country, 
the added revenue would amount to more than 
the National House of Representatives could 
spend in a double session working overtime. 

And why should not the poultryman take just 
as careful a survey of his losses and drawbacks 
as the business man ? Think of it ! Probably 
the average large business of this country is 
done on a less than 5% net profit, and it is safe 
to state that the dealers in feed stuffs and the 
necessaries of life, get less than 2% net profit. 
It is easy to see that these business men could 
not allow a loss in the process of 
manufacture of 90% — nearly equal- 
ling their total sales. They would 
be camping on the trail of the fore- 
man who allowed any such waste 
of raw materials, and they would 
camp there just long enough to get 
a new man for the job. But we 
poultry raisers, in our optimistic 
manner say, — "Well, I am doing 
better than Bill Smith, because he 
lost all his chickens and I only lost two-thirds of 
mine. We will run the incubator another hatch 
and these chicks will only be three weeks behind." 
And so we excuse ourselves in the most dia- 



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Page Two 



SYSTEM 



bolical slip-shod fashion, and content ourselves 
with records because they are no worse than 
the other fellow's. 

We have no knowledge of any business out- 
side of highway robbery that could stand an}^ 
such losses as the poultrymen experience year 
after year, and swallow with apparently little, or 
no thought. For instance, not many years ago 
the writer was called to suggest a remedy for a 
plant that was losing a large percentage of its 
chickens before they were three weeks of age. 
In the course of the conversation, in getting the 
facts of the case, the owner made the statement 
that he had hatched that season 15,000 chicks, — 
and he had raised less than 1500! Nevertheless 
the plant is still running. The owner is still in 
charge. It must be paying or there would have 
been a change of ownership before this time. 
Another owner made the statement that he 
has been raising chickens twenty years, and he 
would guarantee that he had buried as many 
pounds of poultry as he had marketed ! 

Did you ever stop and consider that there is 
a right good reason why every egg does not 
hatch, and an equally good reason why every 
chick that chips the shell does not grow 
to maturity? And the chances are that 
you are just as innocent as guilty of this 
frightful mortality. 

You, in your enthusiasm, want to take 
particularly good care of your breeding 
stock, so with great pains, much time, and some 
cash, you very carefully cork up any opening of 




Page Three 



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POULTRY GJIDE POST 



Yovidyou 

r^ce oU 
mdhods 

jnode«i 
efficjcmy) 




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any kind in your poultry house. You feel that 
you are doing them a particular kindness, and 
you see to it that the wind is tempered, and that 
your pets never get out of doors on the cold 
ground in anything but pleasant weather. 

The result of this smothering is seen in your 
various tests of eggs in the incubator. One- 
third are not fertile. One-third die between the 
first and second tests, a 25% hatch results, and 
the mortality keeps right on after they are 
hatched; for not having yet been convinced of 
the vitalizing effect of the air upon your old 
fowls, you are equally painstaking with the 
babies, and they are kept in super-heated brood- 
ers that kill off all but the very strong, and quite 
frequently make a good clean job of it — and take 
the whole lot. 

Let us see how this will figure out. We will 
start with 300 eggs. One hundred infertile, 
leaves 200 in the machine, and 100 of these 
drop out before the final test, and we get out 
perhaps 75 chickens. 

Placing these in heated brooders that have 
always killed more or less, we find 
that we have 35 chicks of two pound 
weight to go to the roosting coop or 
market, and we will call them worth 
50c. each. 
Now we will start on the increased efficiency 
plan with r n equal number of eggs, but these 
eggs were laid by hens kept in open front 
houses — same houses costing less than the 
other kind, — the open air treatment result- 



Page Four 



SYSTEM 



ing in greatly increased vitality. We find only 
io% of the eggs infertile, and we only lose 
about an equal number between the first and 
second tests. This leaves about 250 eggs in 
the machine, and when the hatch is due we 
get a full 200 chicks that are full of ginger 
and snap. 

Here we find the increased efficiency program 
has given us 200 strong, hardy chicks from the 
same number of eggs, the same care and atten- 
tion that yielded us only 75 second grade young- 
sters on the old style plan. 

In brooding the babies after they are hatched, 
more wonderful and startling comparisons are 
found. We place the 200 efficiency chickens 
that have started life's battle with a strong deter- 
mination to live, in eight heatless brooders and 
follow directions. Here the air conditions and 
heat conditions are almost identical with Nature's 
own methods, and at the end of three weeks we 
have 100 chickens, while with the 75 chickens in 
a heated brooder, heated to a degree recommend- 
ed by the manufacturer, and maintained with 
greater or less success — it is usually found at 
the end of three weeks that we have about half 
as many chickens as we started with, and we 
pass it up as the usual mortality, and go on 
grinding out more to run the same gamut of 
trouble. 

The modern higher efficiency method costs 
much less to install and has everything to rec- 
ommend it so far as economy of time and ex- 
pense is concerned, and you may well ask, "Why 

Page Five 



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23 Half 6rovn 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 



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do the other conditions exist?" The only answer 
is, "The skeptical mind of the public." 

So much for the difference between the hous- 
ing of the old breeding stock, and the brooding 
of the chickens up to three weeks of age. 

Comparing the Feeding System, we find a still 
larger waste that could be corrected. The aver- 
age method of chicken feeding is on the plan 
of keeping the chickens hungry, relying upon 
their keen appetites to correct the inefficiency of 
their diet. They feed boiled eggs, cracker 
crumbs, corn meal, oats, johnny cakes, cracked 
corn, meat scraps, wet mashes, and many other 
combinations, alternating between half starved 
conditions and five-minute gorging processes, 
that pass as feeding time. 

As against this we have the modern efficiency 
method, using Growing Feed, which should be 
a combination of meat and grains ground to- 
gether into a most palatable ration, kept always 
before the chickens from one week's age to ma- 
turity. This feed is always within easy access 
of the entire flock. Each member has forty 
feeds or more per day, takes it as his appetite 
craves, and finds an unending supply. Never 
from the end of the first week does any mem- 
ber of the flock realize what the pangs of real 
hunger mean. The result is: market chickens 
in beautiful condition two weeks to two months 
ahead of the old plan chickens, and pullets from 
one to two pounds heavier at the same age, 
rounded out before laying as perfectly as year- 
ling hens. 



Page Six 



SYSTEM 



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Did you ever stop and consider the various 
processes that the feed goes through in the diges- 
tive economy of a chicken? We think it is not 
recorded who first advocated feeding ground 
feeds wet to poultry, but we all did it, and many 
of us are doing it today. 

Why? Because our fathers and mothers did 
it. Now, we all admit that the best laying and 
the best growth cannot be obtained by feeding 
hard, unground grain, because we have so 
developed the birds' appetites that their intes- 
tines are capable of digesting the food much 
faster than the gizzards can break up and grind 
whole grain. 

Thus, we find that growing chicks, or laying 
hens, make much more rapid growth, lay more 
eggs or make a more complete development 
when fed ground grain. The reason, as we ^^ 
see it, is as follows : When fed on wet mash f 
in the morning they gobble down a cropful in ^ 
five minutes or less time; practically no saliva '' 
is mixed with the food in the process. This 
cropful of food is mildly attacked by the juices 
of the crop, which can only penetrate the out- 
side of the mass before the inside sours. The 
passing of the food through the mouth so rap- 
idly, and the gorging of the crop, practically 
throws all the work that should have been done 
previously, upon the intestines. 

In this way less of the food is digested, and 
more or less irritation arises, causing a tendency 
to bowel trouble, and less efficiency in the num- 
ber of eggs and growth of the bird. 




Page Seven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



o 




Now, when the birds eat ground Growing 
Feed or Egg Feed, they take the feed very 
slowly, mixing it thoroughly with the saliva 
before swallowing, (they cannot swallow it if 
they do not), the feed passes into the crop 
slowly, and is rapidly saturated with the strong, 
digestive acids of this organ. 

It seems to us that this step in the digestive 
process is entirely overlooked by the advocates 
of wet mash feeding. It really seems as though 
the wet mash feeders must consider the crop as 
only a stopping station, or reservoir, for the food 
to rest in before passing to the gizzards and in- 
testines. We know that a very important work 
is performed in the digestive process in the 
crop, and that the dry feeding method, recogniz- 
ing this, gets a much higher percentage of ef- 
ficiency out of the feed, and incidentally, main- 
tains the birds in a much higher standard of 
health. 

Here the work of digestion is very thorough- 
ly started before the feed passes along the ali- 
mentary canal through the intestines, and this 
supplementary work which Nature intended 
should be done before the intestines are reached, 
makes the process much easier and more thor- 
ough. 

With the newly hatched chicken its destiny is 
practically made or wrecked during the first 
three weeks of its existence. If it finds itself 




Page Eight 



SYSTEM 



in the land of plenty, with the proper food al- 
ways within reach, it widens out into a broad 
gauged chicken, building a digestive system 
capable of assimilating large quantities of food, 
and grows into a larger bird than its parents, 
matures and ripens into one of those wide- 
tailed, square-bodied, heavy-limbed birds, that 
are a delight to us all. The pullets are ripe 
at five or six months of age, and produce 
eggs plentifully the full year through, and 
with utter disregard of outside weather con- 
ditions. 

On the other hand, if the birds are brought 
up and cared for by one of our skimpy feeders, 
who thinks that they must be kept hungry all the 
time, the chickens develop into the thinner stock, 
who have been taught from infancy to look upon 
a square meal as a mistake; these mistakes oc- 
curring at such rare intervals that the birds can- 
not accumulate a surplus from which to manu- 
facture eggs. In case a change of ownership 
gives them the benefit of full feeding, it takes 
them a long time to get over the shock, and it is 
a number of weeks especially in the fall of the 
year, before they get well ripened, matured, and 
ready to start laying; and they never have the 
capacity to take in and properly digest the large 
quantities of food, that is necessary for the most 
profitable egg production. 



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and J 





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Page Nine 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




When the chick is first hatched, it has recently 
absorbed the yolk of the egg in the intestinary 
chamber, and this furnishes a portion of its food 
for the next ten days, after which time, in a 
normally healthy chicken, it disappears. 

Now, during this ten-day period, with the yolk 
to draw on, it is easy to realize that no more 
animal fat should be added to the ration. But 
the chickens crave animal food, and grow much 
better w^hen fed a ration that contains this lean 
meat, without the fat. 

Here again the Cod Fish furnishes just the de- 
sired element, and nothing else that we have 
found answers the purpose. Meat Scraps uni- 
formly contain from io% to 20% fat. 

Going back to the three-weeks-old chickens, let 
us follow the housing system and general care, 
aside from the feeding. 

Most modern heated brooders are too large 
for the babies, and too small for the four 
to six-weeks-old youngsters, unless, as usually 
occurs. Dame Nature has reduced the flock to 
one-half or one-third of the original number. 
The result is crowding in uncomfortable quar- 
ters at night, and much loss of efficiency in their 
general discontent, and much loss to the vitality 
and economy. Chickens cannot make satisfac- 
tory gains when living in bad air, in too small 
coops, or when suffering from insufficient food 
or improperly balanced rations, or in too large 
flocks (one hundred chickens running together 
and roosting in quarters about right in size for 
twenty-five chickens). 



Page Ten 



SYSTEM 



Twenty-five chickens properly cooped and fed 
will make as many pounds gain upon one-hali 
the food consumed, as will fifty chickens improp- 
erly housed and fed, and the strangest part of 
the whole story is that the increased efficiency 
plan takes no more, in fact takes less, labor than 
the old plan, and brings much quicker returns. 
This higher efficiency method gives us full, plump 
broilers and roasters, ready for market or table 
at five minutes' notice. The other method gives 
us broilers and roasters only after a fattening 
process, two to four weeks behind the other, and 
from one-half to two pounds less in weight. 

We have taken the chicken through the grow- 
ing period and marketing age, to the laying pen. 
From our original three hundred eggs we have 
ninety to one hundred strong, heavy, well ma- 
tured efficiency pullets, as against the twenty to 
thirty-five pullets that matured one to three 
weeks later, and which were one to two pounds 
each less in weight on the old plan. 

The old style method takes the twenty to thir- 
ty-five pullets, places them in a nice warm house, 
with plenty of glass, feeds them a hot mash in 
the morning, keeps them more or less suffocated 
all winter through, reproducing the same kind 
of eggs and chickens the following spring; 
thereby perpetuating the general inefficiency 
scheme. 

The modern higher efficiency plan places these 
large, well rounded-out pullets in houses costing 
much less to construct, being one-third or more 
open to the south, feeds them Egg Feed (before 



Hie 
Idea 

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Page Eleven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



drowraa 
Dreedin^ 

4^ 



them all the time) and throws Scratch Feed to 
them once a day. The eggs start early and 
continue to come all the fall and winter. They 
hatch out the same kind of high efficiency chick- 
ens, and the profits are assured. 

These briefly are some of the reasons why 
the dry feeding system produces so much better 
results than the old way, and why its users are 
uniformly successful. A trial of the method 
will convince you. 

The conditions we have portrayed as the re- 
sults of the old plan actually exist on thousands 
of poultry plants today. Here and there one 
owner is considered lucky, while hundreds com- 
plain that their birds do not do well, and rail at 
the tariff, reciprocity, and have a general grouch. 
Occasionally an owner knows that there must 
be a reason why every egg fails to hatch, and a 
reason why every chick dies. He earnestly tries 
to arrest these troubles, follows our directions, 
and accepts our statements, and though they seem 
somewhat radical, has faith, tries them out, and 
finds even better results than we have predicted. 

We are glad to say that thousands of our fol- 
lowers are today much more prosperous from 
our teachings, but we realize that there are hun- 
dreds of thousands yet to be convinced and put 
upon the higher efficiency plane. 



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Page Twelve 



msT^^i 



SYSTEM 



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If you have been helped, won't you help your 
neighbor ! 

If you are still in the doubting column, won't 
you make a few tests of these methods, and when 
convinced hand along your good results, and help 
spread the good work? 

If we all get together we can easily double 
the poultry crop of the country, and thereby all 
gain more returns and greater prosperity. 

We consider poultry the most profitable crop 
that can be raised today, and know that the profit 
now derived from it can be doubled by this sys- 
tem. 

There are thousands of families struggling 
along, striving to make the pay envelope satisfy 
the butcher and grocery-man, who could keep 
enough poultry in their back-yard to pay the 
rent, and at the same time have all the fresh eggs 
they could eat every morning. 

And it does not require a great deal of room at 
that. A space large enough to set a house 6x8 
feet in size will do nicely for 15 or 18 hens, on 
which a profit of from $30 to $50 a year can be 
easily made, and the outlay need not be over 
fifty dollars. 

Smaller houses and flocks can be started and 
as much larger as one cares to undertake, but 
the point is that the thousands who might be 



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Page Thirteen 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 



making $50.00 to $300.00 per year right in their 
own yards are not getting ahead at all. 

Look your back-yard over and see if you can- 
not start. If not, look up another location with 
back-yard poultry keeping in mind, and then get 
in on the right basis and get a lead on the grocer. 



Page Fourteen 




Wk all admire an artist at his work and it does 
not matter what that work is, if he is thoroughly 
efficient. 

This work may be painting pictures, render- 
ing musical selections, selling goods, building a 
house or raising a crop of potatoes or chickens, 
but so long as he does it better than his com- 
petitors or fellow workmen he commands our 
respect and admiration. 

Many times this efficiency will be recognized 
as doing the right thing at the proper time and 
in the right place. 

In caring for poultry, little things done at the 
proper time will be found to go to make up the 
success of a venture. 

On the following pages we have attempted to 
set down the most important of the little things 
to be looked after each month during that 
month. To the beginner we know they will 
prove very helpful in removing needless worry 
and in simplifying the business. To the old 
hand at the business they will be found a daily 
reminder of things that are sometimes over- 
looked in the stress of the work. 




Page Fifti 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



While the chronological order is set for the 
climate of New England, with slight modifi- 
cations they will be found to fit almost any 
climate, giving more air and shade in warmer 
districts and a little heavier feeding of corn in 
colder regions, always bearing in mind that when 
in doubt give the birds more air rather than less. 

We hope you will get as much pleasure in 
following these monthly suggestions as we have 
in gathering the facts from the pages of experi- 
ence and setting them down for you. 



Page Sixteen 




s^ 





STARTING IN JANUARY 

January is a cold month, but this should not 
deter any really earnest poultryman from start- 
ing in business. Begin by purchasing a portable 
house along the line of those shown on page 
117, or having a similar building constructed. 
We think in most cases it will be more economi- 
cal to purchase, but that is for you to decide. 

Read carefully housing article on page 117. 

We suggest the purchase of 15-18 pullets, with 
no male bird, if you are in the business to supply 
your table with fresh eggs alone. If you are 
starting in to breed your own stock, and this 
lot is for your original breeding stock, we urge 
the purchase of not over 10 to 12 females, pre- 
ferably yearling hens, and a good vigorous 
cockerel, — one that is well developed and fully 
up to the standard weight of the variet}^ you have 
decided shall be your choice. Fill the open 
stoneware feed dishes with Egg Feed, give them 
scratch feed once a day, provide fresh water, 
grit and oyster shells, and you should soon be 
getting eggs. 

Do not go into the poultry business if you do 
not like hens. 



Page 'Eighteen 



^^^ HEALTH ' 



POINTERS 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

Plan Your Year's Work, and Then Work 
Your Plan. 

January is a good month to plan out the cam- 
paign for the next year's or few years' work. 
Make up your mind, first of all, that you are go- 
ing to be a high grade poultryman ; that you are 
going to improve your last year's profits ; that 
you are going to raise your stock better this year 
than you ever did; that you are going to have a 
plan and stick to it ; that nothing will tempt you 
to keep changing from one breed to another, 
from raising eggs for market to raising eggs for 
hatching, from market poultry to fancy poultry ; 
and that you are determined to so improve your 
breed by careful feeding that they will weigh 
from one to three pounds more when they go to 
market, and that the cockerels will go to market 
from one to tw^o months ahead of any of the 
neighbors'. You can do it. Stick to it. 

Late hatched June and July pullets should be- 
gin laying this month, if they have been properly 
fed and cared for. Broilers and roasters started 
this month bring the cream of the year's prices, 
and the parent stock should be selected as per 
suggestions in our October and December hints. 
They should be laying well now, and the incuba- 
tors and brooders put into working order, and the 
v^^ork started early in the month. 

Cut down the number of females in your 
breeding pens. The annual loss from infertile 
eggs, weak germs and delicate chickens would 




Page Nineteen 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



file coiienled 
kn {\h tfic 
Ew basket 




total up into millions of dollars. You say 
that it would be a nuisance to put half as many 
females in each pen, — well, then, put a partition 
through each pen. It may be a nuisance, but 
not half as much as throwing away half of your 
early hatches. 

Small flocks spell big profits, and this rule 
holds good from start to finish. 

Pampered stock and pampered chicks spell 
failure. 

The contented hen fills the egg basket. 

Breeding stock previously selected should be 
housed in cold houses and fed upon a properly 
proportioned Egg Feed and scratch feed with 
oyster shells always within reach. This ration 
insures a steady tgg yield, birds always in good 
health, and if the stock is such as we have de- 
scribed, eggs are sure to be fertile, and chickens 
hardy and easily reared. Sloppy, wet-mash, 
stop-watch feeding is not only nerve racking and 
continuous drudgery to the owner, but keeps the 
birds on edge and at all times watching and wait- 
ing for the next feed. Where this way is once 
given a trial, the old methods are sure to be laid 
on the shelf, and you wonder why this business 
method was not previously discovered. 

Chickens hatched in the middle of winter need 
good brooding accommodations, and while the 
style of house and plan of brooder may vary 
with the owner's fancy, for a safe proposition 
nothing equals the small colony house with an 
individual fireless brooder contained therein. 
The chicks should be kept in the brooders ac- 



Page Twenty 



POINTERS 



cording to directions until one week or ten days 
old, then allowed the run of the dirt floor ot 
the house for another week. 

When two weeks old daily out-of-door exer- 
cise must be provided and insisted upon. Chick- 
ens cannot grow successfully without it, and leg 
weakness is sure to follow if one attempts to 
rear them without this. Feed them something 
they like on a bare spot of ground just outside 
the building, and provide easy access to and from 
the house (no stairs or blind passageway) and 
they will work back and forth under zero weath- 
er conditions with nothing but benefit to them- 
selves and their owner. 

Baled shavings make excellent litter. Most 
grain dealers carry it in stock. 

Better give the breeding hens a little more 
room than the layers, and if you find you must 
sell a few pullets in order to do this, ask your 
live poultry dealer to quote. 

Get your incubator this month and be sure you 
have plenty of brooding room. 

JANUARY DISEASES 

The only trouble for January, and most of the 
fall and early winter months, is roup — or neg- 
lected colds, caused usually by crowded sleeping 
quarters, or roosting in draughts or in too warm 
houses without sufficient air. 

Birds housed in houses that are one-third open 
to the weather on the south side, (or more open 
in southern climates), will be free from roup or 




Page Twenty-one 



^^tt^!""^^ 


POULTRY GUIDE POST 


^^^■^^IJ??^" 



colds if the opening allows no draught. It is 
the safest way. 

To AVOID DRAUGHTS, long houses must 
have tight board partitions between each pen. 
Colony houses should be fairly tight on all sides, 
but the south, and the opening here should be 
about two feet from the floor, and sides and roof 
as illustrated by cut of "No-Yard" house on 
page 28. 



Page Twenty-fzvo 




mm 






STARTING IN FEBRUARY 

Thk conditions for starting the poultry business 
in February are much the same as for January, 
except that for breeding purposes it is easier 
to procure well developed pullets that will make 
satisfactory breeders, although stronger chickens 
will be the rule if yearlings are used as recom- 
mended for January. Get an incubator, if rais- 
ing chickens is your object, and start it up as 
soon as the eggs come freely. 

Our cities are growing rapidly; our people 
are appreciating the value of fresh eggs. The 
price keeps working up and will continue to work 
up until you receive 75c. per dozen for eggs dur- 
ing the holidays. Get aboard ! 

Do not spend much money on fancy breeds, 
new varieties, and new blood. If you will take 
proper care of your own stock, you can develop 
it into as good and hardy a stock, and handsome 
as any you see in the show rooms. 

Keep your expenses and your ideas down to 
the market level of price, and you will make 
money, while if you try for the long prices of 
fancy stock, you will find only disappointment 
and loss. 




Page Twenty-three 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Cdn ?Ionc/ 







We have been there, — we have won the rib- 
bons, and sold the high priced birds, — but take 
it from us, THERE -IS NOTHING IN IT. It 
is the good market biddy that has no frills, fancy 
skirts or shirtwaists, that pays the grocery bills 
and the mortgage. 

gi:nerai, suggestions 

Winter chickens, in fact all chickens, should 
be well fed in order to get the benefit of the 
quick-growing habit of the previously selected 
ancestors. Surely the youngsters cannot make 
bone and muscle out of a ''pleasant view" or 
''good sunny weather;" something more satisfy- 
ing to the appetite will answer much better, and 
while plenty of good vitalizing air m.ust be pro- 
vided, so must an abundance of food be always 
within reach. 

Use plenty of good litter. The birds need 
exercise to keep in the condition that means 
profitable poultry. 

Keep the Egg Feed hopper full. The birds 
are keeping union hours now. 

Scald out the drinking dishes occasionally. 

If your early hatches show signs of leg weak- 
ness, be sure that you get them an out-of-door 
run. In fact, feed them out of doors on the 
bare ground one or two feeds per day of some 
delicacy that they are very fond of. Get them 
out into the open air after they are ten days of 
age regardless of temperature. Shovel ofif a spot 
right down to mother earth, and do not be 
afraid to let them eat a little snow. Place your 

Page Twenty-four 



POINTERS 



orders now for baby chickens for April delivery. 

You will have to put on your thinking cap of- 
ten nowadays, or the other spring work will 
crowd out the chicks. Do the fair thing by them. 
Their success during the rest of the year depends 
on it. 

Chicks of the large American breeds hatched 
this month will make the best of early roasters, 
and will bring good prices in June and July. 

Start the brooder in a clean house, with not 
more than 25 chicks together; feed chick feed 
liberally, better up to the wasting point than to 
let some of the chicks go hungry. Start the 
Growing Feed as soon as they are one week old, 
and let them have the run of the house when ten 
days old. Do not let them bunch up out in the 
bright sunlight on cold winter days. The sun- 
light has a fascination for them and frequently 
they will huddle together and get chilled outside 
in preference to going to a warm hover cham- 
ber. In wooden brooders it is sometimes better 
to hang a thin curtain over the glass window to 
avoid this trouble, until they reach a more dis- 
criminating age. 

If your rooster is old, do not have too many 
hens in the pen Avith him, if you expect the eggs 
to hatch. 

If one keeps hens for egg production alone, 
there will be no need of having any male birds. 
It costs at least $1.00 a year to feed a male. Bet- 
ter keep an extra hen. 




Page Twenty-five 




Cut out tic bt 
Ji opclb ftoUDLE 



FEBRUARY DISEASES 

This month's troubles, if any, are likely to be 
from confinement, sometimes resulting in egg 

eating and feather pulling, caused by the 

birds not getting all the variety of feed 

which they pick up while on range. 

These elements should be supplied in the 

Egg Feed, thereby eliminating all chances of 

this trouble. 

Canker sometimes appears this month, but 
it is really a case of roup that you thought you 
cured last fall. Healthy hens do not have it un- 
less they drink out of the same dish with the 
sick ones. 

MORAL: Isolate or dispose of all doubtful 
ones, and continue the isolation until you dispose 
of them. 

Crop bound birds have not been getting enough 
roughage in their food, and to satisfy the crav- 
ing, eat their htter, straw or long hay used in 
making nests. This Ion*- material accumulates 
in the crop, and sometimes causes death. 



Page Twenty-six 




STARTING IN MARCH 

Carry out the January plan and directions on 
page 121 as to getting the house ready and 
setting it up; except that starting with newly 
hatched chickens no Htter would be required. 
This is a very good plan if economy on first 
cost is the object. 

This house makes a fine brooding housed for 
two small brooders and fifty chickens, using the 
dropping board on which to handle the brooders 
until the chicks are a week or ten days old, — 
then giving them the use of the house, separat- 
ing the two lots with a little chicken wire. \\^hen 
two weeks old provide runways outside, covered 
to keep out the cats, and when the cockerels are 
ready for broilers, ship them alive to market, 
giving the pullets the entire house in which to 
mature. 

While this plan does not provide an immediate 
income, it costs very little to start it, and the 
cockerels sold should pay for the feed that they 
and the pullets have consumed up to date. 

Do not go into the poultry business if you 
think you can half feed your flock and make a 
success of the business. The hen's body wants 

Page Twenty-seven 








POULTRY GUIDE POST 



come first; if there is any surplus it is made up 
into eggs. It is up to you to provide the sur- 
plus. 




GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

When planning your extensions for the year, 
if you build your roosting coops for your young 
stock on the colony laying house plan, you will 
find that your capital is working twelve months 
in the year; whereas, if you use a low, small 
roosting coop, you must rebuild again in the fall. 
Select a type of colony house that pleases you, 
then add to your plant each season as many of 
these colony houses or units, as you need. 

Brains are needed as much as capital in the 
poultry business. 

Following a hard winter, this is the month of 
poor hatches from stock that has been fed upon 
wet mashes and partially smothered all winter in 
glass houses. Such stock needs a few weeks' 
exercise in the open air to get thoroughly alive 
again. 

Set all the broody hens that come along this 
month. 

Keep the incubator full. After ten days swap 
the eggs out from under the hens into the incu- 
bator. The machine will finish them up better 
than the hens and deliver more chickens, ivith 
no lice. An incubator and the hens working to- 
gether make a splendid combination, and beats 
either one working alone. 

Healthy chickens live unless abused. Healthy 
hens lay eggs, that if not abused, hatch healthy 



Page Twenty-eight 



POINTERS 



^ELW^^ 



chickens. Now it is up to you; if you are los- 
ing chickens, why? Are you abusing them, or 
did you abuse the old stock? Abuse may come 
in two forms, — neglect or over-attention, — try- 
ing to keep your birds too warm in winter, feed- 
ing improper feeds, etc. You may be keeping 
your chicks too warm, not running your incuba- 
tor properly. There is a reason for the death of 
every chicken. Try and see this year if you 
cannot cut last season's mortality one-half. 

Early January hatched broilers can now be 
marketed, as the demand for this month does not 
call for them to weigh over three-quarters to one 
pound each. Market limited as to number re- 
quired. 

Pullets hatched this month will give good re- 
sults in the fall. 

Cockerels of the American varieties, March- 
hatched, caponized, sell at good prices for 
roasting chickens during August and early . 
September. This month is usually the year' 
lowest point for prices on eggs. 

Alfalfa cut or mealed makes splendid litter 
for brooders and runs for early chicks, always 
sweet and not expensive. 

Figure out about how many broods of chicks 
there will be, and get the spring coops and fit- 
tings cleaned up and in working order. Chickens 
will soon be plenty, and time scarce. 

In mating the pens of breeding stock refer to 
October hints for the selection of male birds, 
and December hints on the selection of females. 
Remember that nothing but the best is good 




Page Twenty-nine 



ti';3, 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



1:^ 




i' 



/^ 



lel] your naphhor 
dhoutyour success 



enough, whether for eggs, roasters, broilers or 
fancy poultry. 

MARCH DISEASES 

Leg weakness in chickens Is caused usually by 
confining the birds indoors, and on hard floors 
and overheated brooders. Get your birds out of 
doors when ten days old, and raise them always 
(all of them) in small heatless brooders. 

Sitting hens leave their nests if lousey — sel- 
dom for any other reason. Use lice powder 
liberally whenever you set a hen, and at other 
times also. 

Poor fertility is usually caused by insufficient 
air in the quarters during the winter, too many 
females with one male, or too large flocks. Cut 
down the size of your flocks, and take out the 
windows, substituting wire netting, water-proof 
sheeting, or cheese cloth. 

Raise your chickens on a new lot of land each 
season, or let a crop of green stuff grow between 
seasons, and you will not be troubled with gapes 
in your chicks. 



Page Thirty 



^p^^ 




STARTING IN APRIL 

Starting in April is a cinch. Buy the houses 
as in January plan, and if eggs for table is all 
that is wanted, you will not have long to wait. 
Your pullets will be laying within a day or two 
after you get them, and in a week's time you 
will be getting a dozen eggs or more a day. 

If you wish to start with the minimum expense 
and are willing to wait for the chickens to grow, 
get a small portable house and two small heatless 
brooders and proceed as in March using the 
house for the pullets after the cockerels go to 
market. 

Using incubators, you simply provide more 
small brooders as the chickens hatch. 

If hatching with hens, set them in a dry place 
with plenty of ventilation. Avoid damp cellars. 
Forget about sods and damp earth in the nest. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

If your chickens are on range or in yards 
where the hawks bother them, sometimes con- 
venient brush heaps, or stretches of wire net- 
ting, so placed as to break up the swoop of 
the hawks as they skim along the ground in 

Page Thirty-one 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 




Weed out ih 
long legs 



catching the chickens, will stop their thieving. 

In early spring a cornfield, with last season's 
stalks standing, makes an ideal dodging place 
for the youngsters, and Mr. Hawk will give it 
up as a "bad job" trying to catch them among 
the. stalks. 

There is only one way to feed poultry if you 
would make a success of the business ; stuff them 
with the right kind of feed from "hatch to 
hatchet." 

Watch 
the 



now 



the cockerels and pullets, and mark 
ones making the most satisfactory 
growth, choosing those that have grown steadily 
and at all times have been plump, full breasted, 
and in good proportion. 

Avoid those that grow leggy, with thin breasts, 
and also the ones that grow unevenly, making a 
month's or two months' progress and then ap- 
parently stopping, and later going ahead again. 

Get the breeding stock out of doors, give them 
plenty of room, not too many females with your 
males. 

If you have previously lacked the nerve, take 
all the windows out of your poultry house this 
month, provided, of course, that they are all in 
the south side and no draughts on the roost re- 
sults. 

Growing Feed is the feed that puts those nice 
plump broilers and roasters on the market, and 
gives us the big hardy pullet that lays all win- 
ter, and in the spring produces the kind of 
chicks that are bound to live if given half a 
chance — and proper feeds. 



Page Thirty-two 



POINTERS 



Cull your flock closely. Market everything 
that is not making valuable use of every kernel 
of grain it eats. Do not house any loafers. Get 
them into money. 

Your late chickens will still be in danger from 
rats. Be sure to keep some good Rat Destroyer 
in stock and use promptly. 

Do not be afraid to give the chicks all the sour 
milk they will cat. Good for them. If there is 
anything better, we have never found it. 

Better caponize the cockerels if intended for 
roasters. Place in fair sized yards or let them 
run at large, and feed — and feed hard. These 
chickens are going to be worth thirty cents a 
pound in June and you cannot afiford to have 
them stand around a minute waiting for the feed 
to come. 

Try this year and have a nice lot of 5 or 6 
pound soft roasting chickens to sell during the 
Christmas holidays. 

Use all the poultry manure in top-dressing the 
grass land or on the garden plot. 

January and February hatched broilers are 
now selling well, and prices during this month 
should be at the top. If you think there is more 
money in them for you as broilers, let them go 
now, if they are large enough. The market calls ^ 
for larger broilers this month than in February 
and March, and wants still larger s'zes in May. 
Always give the party paying the bill what they 
want — if they call for two pound broilers, do not 
send them one and one-quarter pound, or you 
will lose in price. 

Page Thirty-three 




mzk 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



^^^ 



25 Hatched 




^3 Half 6rcvn 







ZZ "Keacli jndtiiril;^' 




This is one of the best months to hatch pul- 
lets for middle-fall and early winter laying. Get 
out all you can. 

Do not throw away that setting of eggs simply 
because the hen left the nest and they got cold. 
Unless they have been exposed to freezing tem- 
perature for 24 hours, in many instances the hatch 
will come along as if nothing had happened, if 
you put another hen on and let her finish the 
clutch. 

Get away from the old idea that you should 
keep fifty chickens in a lot. You will make al- 
most, if not quite as much profit on twenty-five 
chickens raised in the small heatless brooder as 
with fifty raised in the old-fashioned way. 

APRIL, DISEASES 

As a rule poor hatches are the result of low 
vitality in the breeding stock. (See ^larch hints 
referring to poor fertility). 

Liver troubles and indigestion are caused by 
poor food and improperly balanced rations. 

Guard against these by feeding only the best 
of feeds. 

Chicken pox is some more of last fall's cured 
(?) colds and roup, now showing up in another 
form. 



Page Thirty-four 







STARTING IN .MAY 

Pullets for laying or breeding had better be the 
rule for starting in ]\Iay. Set the house up and 
raise the chickens, if that is to be the business, 
in the small brooder; or start as in April. The 
house will soon be needed, and makes an ideal 
roosting coop. Use the incubator and brooder 
if you are breeding your own stock. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

A good garden, a cow, a flock of hens, and you 
can cut your grocery and provision bill in half 
and begin to live where you only existed before. 

Let the March chickens have plenty of roomy 
roosting coops or roost in trees. Keep the feed 
always within reach. 

To break up your setting hens, catch them the 
first night you find them on the nest, and place 
them in light airy coops, with wire or slat bot- 
toms. This kind of a coop keeps them from 
hugging a board floor or the ground, and by per- 
mitting the free circulation of air below them, 
tends to reduce the fever which is in their blood 
at this time. 




Page Thirty- five 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Lice 
Spoiled 
Thi^ 
Hatch 












Nothing but lice will cause the old hen to leave 
her eggs when she has settled down. 

Setting hens are lice breeders. This is one 
reason why the incubator is to be preferred for 
hatching chickens. 

The chickens are free from lice to begin with 
and it is not such a difficult matter to keep the 
lice in subjection. 

Stop the red mites with liquid lice killer before 
they get started — prevention is better than cure. 

Hatch the eggs in an incubator or with hens. 

Don't have ventilators. 

Don't try to keep your birds warm. They 
have ample protection from the coldest winter 
weather if you only keep them cold all the time. 

Don't feed hot mashes that will sweat them. 

Keep them healthy, feed them properly, and 
the eggs will roll out. 

Try marketing your birds alive. We don't 
know of a more nerve-racking job than picking 
a lot of broilers without tearing the skins. 

Many times you can get as much for them 
alive as you can for them dressed. The labor 
saved is a big item. 

Broilers are going down in price, and the mar- 
ket is calling for larger birds, two and one-half 
to three pounds each month. 

March hatched chickens should now be leaving 
the brooders, and if they have been properly 
hardened, will take quite airy roosting coops. 

Chicks of the Plymouth Rock, Wyandotte, R. 
I. Red and some other varieties hatched this 
month can be brought to laying by November 



Page Thirty-six 



POINTERS 



1st, if pushed with plenty of Growing Feed. 

Outdoor brooders must be kept under a shed 
or some kind of sun protection to maintain the 
even hover temperature desired. In teaching 
young chickens to run in and out of outdoor 
brooders regularly, use a sod or pile of dirt for 
them to run up and down on. Also when build- 
ing their first yards make them A-shaped, with 
the apex at the opening of the brooder, then the 
chicks will have no corner to bunch up in dur- 
ing the bright sunshiny days, and their education 
takes much less of the attendant's time. 

Growing chickens in the hot months, too young 
to roost, will thrive much better if they sit on 
the ground ; that is, if their coops have no floors. 

Plant Dwarf Essex Rape this month. Care 
for it as you would young cabbage plants, until 
the plants are a foot high, then break or cut off 
the leaves as wanted daily for the poultry. The 
new shoot will spring up again and continue 
the process until the hard freezing weather of 
October and November comes. Four pounds 
of seed, for an acre of land. 

If you are through hatching, break up your 
pens and market the old cocks, all but the very 
choice ones that you are expecting to use another 
year. They are a nuisance with their quarrel- 
some habits and are a continual bill of expense. 

Be liberal enough with your estimate and have 
chickens enough and to spare. If you have 
twenty-five percent to spare when filling your 
laying houses they will always find a ready 
sale, and this gives you an opportunity to cull 

Page Thirty-seven 










All headed 
totlie Hole 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Eneniie5 are 
on you]\ 




closely and reserve only the best for yourself. 

Be careful of them on cool nights when first 
put out ; see that they do not pile up and smother 
one another. 

January and February chickens intended for 
early market should have grass runs and Grow- 
ing Feed before them during the balance of their 
lives. 

Have a closely woven wire door to each of 
your chicken houses and don't forget to close 
them at night, or some rat, skunk, owl, fox, 
cat, mink or weasel may deplete your stock. 

MAY diskase;s 

White diarrhoea is quite contagious among the 
newly hatched chickens. Raise them in heatless 
brooders and burn the brooder if any trouble 
appears. 

We think this is an inherited disease. Don't 
breed from any hens that are not in the best of 
health and be careful where you buy eggs for 
hatching. 

Be sure you know that any stock you buy 
is better in health than your own before you 
part with any of your good money. 

We should take chances with a little inbreed- 
ing from strong, robust, hardy stock, rather than 
take chances with unknown, over-advertised out- 
siders. 

If your hens have pale combs look for red 
mites or spider lice in cracks and all around the 
t-oosts and nest boxes. Use liquid lice killer. 

Indigestion — See April hints on Liver Trou- 
bles. 

Page Thirty-eight 




line 




'''.> 




-. '■>^v^^ 



STARTING IN JUNE 
Starting in June, if you want winter laying, it 
will save time to purchase chickens in place of 
hatching them. Get them out on a good grass 
plot with shade and sunlight where they can get 
whichever they choose when they reach the age 
of discrimination, and feed liberally. They 
should be laying in December if pushed with lib- 
eral feeding. 

Eggs for the family table come as soon as the 
pullets are located and get to eating freely. Give 
them all the table scraps after each meal. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

The days begin to get hot ; see that the brood- 
ers are in the shade, that the chickens have shade 
also, that they all have an abundance of water 
and green food. Both are cheap and almost 
equally important. One-third of the growing 
chicks living will be from green food if given 
a grass run, and how much cheaper the gain on 
this ration is easily figured. 

Whitewash the chicken coops. Disinfect the 
hen houses with a good disinfectant at least once 
a week, and continue through the hot months to 
come. 




\cep in 
the sJiado. 



Page Tliirfy-nine 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




A good 

suggestion 
for 6tray catr 



When dressing poultry be careful to cool the 
carcass properly, else it will heat and result in 
loss. "Cool well, keep well," is the rule. 

From June ist to July 4th is the top of the 
market for roasting chickens. January and 
February roasters, capons and pullets should all 
be turned into money while the price is at the 
highest point. They should bring from 30c. to 
33c. per pound, and here is where we think the 
roaster has great advantage over the broiler. 
These same chickens in April were broiler size, 
and would not have sold for a great deal more 
per pound that month and were weighing only 
two pounds each. They now weigh four to five 
pounds each, and the last two or three pounds 
have only cost eight to ten cents per pound for 
feed, giving a profit of from twenty to twenty- 
five cents per pound, or from forty to seventy- 
five cents per bird. No mortality and a hand- 
some margin. 

Look hard after lice and use liquid lice killer 
and lice powder freely. Don't let the ''bugs" 
get a start. 

Cats and chickens agree sometimes, but stray 
cats are always subject to suspicion and if you 
are losing chickens and can trace them in no oth- 
er way, set a box trap, and bait it with a dead 
chicken. If the cat takes the bait, your suspicion 
is correct. Dispose of the cat with as little delay 
and disturbance as possible. 

A box trap is made of boards and illustrated 
below. Most any boy that is handy with tools will 
make one in an hour or two and most country 



Page Forty 



POINTERS 



boys have used them to catch rabbits and other 
game. They need no directions or suggestions. 

Remove males from breeding yards as soon 
as the season is over. Keep the best for another 
season. If you have three or four, put all to- 
gether in an open yard on a good hot day at noon 
time and let them "scrap it out." In a few min- 
utes they will find the master, and all future dis- 
putes will be referred to him for settlement. 
Keep them by themselves until wanted for breed- 
ing pens. 

Begin to work ofif the less valuable and more 
broody of the hens. 

This is a good month to caponize. 

Market all the broiler stock on hand. 

Have you provided shade in the runs? Fail- 
ure to do so results in chicks that won't feather. 

Get the layers to drink all the water or milk 
you can. Eggs are very largely made up of 
water, and the birds cannot lay heavily without 
a constant supply. Frequent changes induce 
frequent drinking. 

Milk, (skimmed, sweet or sour) is one of the 
best feeds for growing chickens and it will pay 
double the profit w^hen turned into poultry that 
it will when fed to pigs. 

If you want to use brooding hens, this and 
next month are good months to set them. 

They will raise a greater percentage of chicks 
during the hot wxather than brooders, and, if 
allowed to take their own course, will raise these 
and go to laying again during August and Sep- 
tember, when eggs are paying a good profit. 




'^V Provide a 
good gxd^^s 
plot with 
^iBdednd^iiiiliplit 



Page Forty-one 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




We have no use for the hen in hatching dur- 
ing the cold weather, but she will be found to 
do good work during the hot months in brood- 
ing chickens. Give her a corn field, orchard or 
patch of weeds in v/hich to grow her family, 
and she will nearly pay for herself before cold 
weather gets her. 

JUNK DISKASI^S 

Sudden deaths during hot v/eather are many 
times the result of last fall's cured ( ?) cases 
of roup. 

The Barred Rocks seem a little more prone 
to these troubles than other varieties. 

Late chicks not growing is usually the result 
of carelessness, unclean brooders, or yarding 
them in the same yards the early chicks used, 
or from mixing the young and older chickens 
together. 

Be sure to keep each age by themselves, and 
be just as enthusiastically clean with these late 
comers as with your first born pets that came 
in March. 



Page Forty-two 




STARTING IN JULY 
Starting this month we should purchase large 
heavy pullets if for the table eggs alone, de- 
pending upon using them upon the family table 
during the months of August and September, 
Vv^hen they begin moulting. It is rather late to 
hatch breeding stock for another year. We 
would advise purchasing chickens and pushing 
them along so they would get to laying in Jan- 
uary. This can be easily done if new runs, 
plenty of shade, feed and green stuff are pro- 
vided. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

If you will see that all your chickens that are 
not old enough to perch sit with their feet on 
the ground during the hot weather, you will 
avoid colds and roup among them. 

There is a wonderful amount of bloo 1 passing 
through their feet, and if the ball of the foot 
rests upon the ground (the earth being a remark- 
ably good conductor of heat) this keeps their 
body temperature down, and prevents sweating 
and consequent colds. 

Board floors are necessary in the early spring 
m.onths to keep the coops dry, and are de- 



Keep their 
"feet on the 



Ground 




Q^)"; 




Page Forty-three 



BL^ 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



^^ 



Good leed 
on the 










cidedly wrong In hot weather, for the above 
reasons. 

The demand is for heavy chickens and heavy 
fowl. 

Spread the growing youngsters out over the 
hay fields this month after the hay is cut and 
you will lose nothing, next season's crop will be 
better for it, and if you lose some of the second 
crop it will be fed to better advantage to the 
chickens than to any other farm animals. 

Do not think that the chickens can live on 
grasshoppers; give them all the feed you can 
get them to eat, with the grasshoppers as an 
extra. 

After this season of the year it is a good 
thing to send broody hens to market. 

July is termed a late month for hatching lay- 
ing pullets, but if you have not ample stock, 
by all means get out enough to "make good." 
If these chickens are given as good care as out- 
lined for June chicks, they will mature in Jan- 
uary and February and make the best of sum- 
mer and early fall layers. It is useless to expect 
the early hatched pullet to keep laying all winter 
and spring and still keep at it through the hot 
weather. Really, these late pullets are nearly 
or quite as profitable as the earlier ones, for 
they lay splendidly during August, September 
and October, when fresh eggs bring good prices 
and at a very small cost. Do not despise the 
late chickens. 

About this time put the caponized males In 
yards fifty feet square for fifty birds, push them 

Page Forty-four 



r^^-^ 



POINTERS I P^^'^j-^S^^^SE- 




with fattening feed and plenty of meat scraps^ 
with hberal feeds of corn and barley. Do not 
hold them too long. When they reach the weight 
of 5 lbs. each alive, get market quotations. Re- 
member, as a general thing, the price per pound 
is going down after they reach this size, and it 
is up to you to get your money out of them at 
the earliest opportunity. 

For instance, a 5-pound chicken sold in August 
will usually bring 18 to 20 cents per pound, while 
if the same cockerel is kept until November, 
then weighing 6 pounds, he will be hard and not 
worth 12 to 15 cents per pound. In other words, 
you have lost three months' feeding by holding. 

Allow chicks the run of swamp land during 
hot weather, but get them into upland brooding '^ ^^P) 
coops at night or colds may result. '^ ^ ^,^ Sy 

Keep the house as cool as possible. h^'\ 

The most profitable hens, as a rule, are not /"^^^^ — 

the stylish ones. 

Lice like to hide away under the end of the 
roosts. Every time you spray, lift the roosts' 
and give the pests a dose that will drive them 
out for good and all. 

Women make the best of poultry keepers and 
all find the work interesting, pleasant and very 
profitable. 

There ought to be a law forbidding over 
twenty-five chicks together. 

Renew the nest material frequently. 

Send the broilers to market as fast as they 
are ready. Write your dealer for quotations 

Page Forty- five 




POULTRY GUICE POST 



K^^SQ 




Shady 



and get them into money, giving the pullets more 
room. 

Look out for mites in all your new coops and 
houses as well as in the old ones, but they seem 
to thrive better in the old wood. Use liquid lice 
killer all around cracks, nests and roosts of lay- 
ing houses and roosting coops. 

Shady nooks are relished by the hens. 

JUI.Y DISKASKS 

Apoplexy — same as sudden death in June 
hints. Old stock going light — results of last 
fall's cured (?) cases of colds and roup. 

Summer colds and snuffles among growing 
chickens are the results of too hot sleeping 
quarters. 

Be sure their feet rest on the ground, and 
not on board floors, and that they are never 
over warm. 

About all they need is wire to protect them 
from the skunks, etc. 



Page Forty-six 




STARTING IN AUGUST 

Starting in August for table eggs, we should 
not recommend purchasing matured birds as it 
is just in the middle of the moulting period, and 
anoving them about would result in stopping their 
laying altogether. Better get the house ready 
and purchase some early hatched pullets that 
will get to laying in September or October. 

For breeding stock, this m.onth is a good time 
to pick up some yearlings of some good reliable 
breed that suits you. They will make ideal stock 
for next season's use, begin laying in November 
or December, just in time for broilers and early 
winter work. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

When the poultrymen all find out that the 
first year of a layer's life is the most profitable, 
they will begin to market their old hens as fast 
as they start moulting. They should push them 
hard the first year, then buy or raise pullets to 
take their place. Early moulters are frequently 
slow moulters, taking eight to ten weeks for the 
process, while the later moulters will get through 
in half the time. Send them along to market as 




Keepupep^Iayinp" 
or polo marlict. 



Page Forty-seven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




MMMl 

,sale1 



soon as they show signs of moulting and get 
pullets to fill their place. All the old surplus 
stock should now be marketed. 

It is somebody's fault if the little summer 
chicks are dying. 

The tender little fellows cannot withstand heat 
and lice combined. Protect them from the sun 
and get after the lice. 

The old rooster crows well, but he is a tyrant. 
Either sell him or get him away from the laying 
hens some other way. He pesters them so that 
they cannot do their best. 

Hot, dry weather, and larger chicks in with 
them, make it a hard condition for the later 
broods to catch up with the early ones, and a 
good many times it causes the owner to say, 
'Xate chickens are no good anyway." 

Late chickens are all right and as good money 
makers as the early ones, if properly cared for, 
but they must have radically different treatment 
when hatched in hot weather. 

With the early birds we must take care to 
keep the pens dry, and their feet off the ground 
when being brooded. Late chicks must be kept 
cool, and after a few weeks old we must be 
careful to keep their feet on the ground when 
being brooded. 

See that the growing stock has plenty of 
room to expand. Be sure that every chicken 
you own has plenty of elbow room to grow in 
and see that he is never overheated after night- 
fall. This is a bad month for crowded quarters. 
Often the seeds of next winter's crop of roup 



Page Forty-eight 



^^^^^ 



w^^-^ 



POINTERS 



are sown in this month, simply by keeping the 
youngsters crowded into quarters about the right 
size for one-fourth the number. Results : the 
chickens are too hot at night and take cold by 
getting out on a chilly morning in September 
and waiting around for the sun to warm them up. 

August is a good money making month. 
Prices of poultry are at good paying figures ; 
eggs bring better returns and chickens hatched 
this month make splendid roasters during Feb- 
ruary and March. August hatched pullets will 
be found rather more profitable if turned for 
market than kept as layers.* 

Shade, green stufif and plenty of water are all 
very essential for August chickens of all ages and 
sizes. Keep the dififerent sizes by themselves. 

There is no crop we know of that will produce 
such returns in green feed for poultry as Dwarf 
Essex Rape. Sow at any season of the year, 
wet or dry, hot or cold. Frost does not hurt 
it, and it will make a satisfactory growth any- 
where, but with good rich soil and plenty of 
room the plants will soon rival cabbages in size, 
and remind one of loose-headed cabbages. Ask 
your seedsman for the seed. 

Tell your neighbors of the results you obtain 
from good feeds and supplies. It will help 
them, and in helping them you help yourself, 
for if your neighborhood has the reputation of 
producing top-notch quality you will get better 
prices for your stock. 




Keep up 



* A "layer" is a hen or pullet devoted to market 
eggs, not destined to be used in the breeding pen. 



Page Forty-nine 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Tel] your neipl]bor 
about your success 



Begin to market the old hens as they stop 
laying. Be sure that they are good and fat, as 
per suggestions in July. 

This is a bad month for mites. 

Use a sprayer for applying liquid lice killer 
and some disinfectant to the various houses and 
runs. A good sprayer makes thorough, quick 
and easy work. Pay special attention to spray- 
ing the nest boxes and the perches. 

AUGUST DISi:ASKS 

Whenever you can do so, separate your chick- 
ens into smaller flocks, and if you want any 
particular lot to develop especially quick, divide 
them once more. 

The smaller the number together, the less 
trouble, and the most results. 



Page Fifty 



'^^eiffemdei^ 



"^-x^ 




'^^'^4^^^'':^^^-^ 




STARTING IN SEPTEMBER 

Starting in September, buy pullets for family 

eggs, and yearling hens for the best breeding 

stock for another season. Buy house and other 

appliances as in other months, but support the 

house on posts and get sand or gravel in early ^ 

before the fall rains wet it. House your birds "^'^f',^^, ^\ 

that are intended only for laying, but let the 

breeding stock have all the range outside the 

house that you can provide. 

Hatch a few broods of chicks this month. 
They will lay in March and keep at it until Fall. 
Winter them in a house by themselves, with 
plenty of food by them at all times. Sell the 
cockerels in February. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

Get the early ]\Iarch-hatched pullets that you 
plan to use for layers into winter quarters by 
the middle or last of this month. 

There never will be too many good poultry- 
men; do not be afraid of that. Be one of the 
best. 

It is not too late to get another litter out of 
the hens that have not moulted yet. 

Page Fifty-one 




In winter Qvariew 



mw 



PC ULTRY GUIDE POST 




!iem 



Pullets are worthy of your best attention. Get 
the early ones into winter quarters, and con- 
tented this month. 

It checks them less to move them' before they 
begin to lay. 

Yard the cockerels by themselves; not only 
the market stock but the ones you have selected 
for breeders. They grow much better than when 
placed 'with the pullets or hens. If they begin 
to get scrappy, put in one of the old cocks with 
them. He will maintain order, and is tickled 
with "his job." 

This is the timie the wet mash hen goes to 
pieces, so to speak. While her dry fed sister 
is laying right along, she takes a complete vaca- 
tion, loafs around, neither an ornament nor help, 
demonstrating the truth of our claim of health- 
ier flocks by this system of feeding. We repeat 
last month's warning; keep the chickens cool 
nights, do not let them pile up or sweat, see 
them personally at least once a week, and pro- 
vide plenty of room. Get them out of the trees 
as soon as the nights get frosty; put them in 
winter quarters, but keep the house cool. 

Keep working off the old hens, watch your 
flock of growing youngsters. If you find a 
number that lag behind the others, put them by 
themselves and see that they have a little better 
chance. 

Have your houses all cleaned out, and put in 
about six inches of clean sand or loam. 

Keep the hens happy and healthy. Use liquid 
lice killer, and some good disinfectant. 



Page Fifty -two 



POINTERS 



Hens with scaly legs are undesirable mothers. 

Get the capons to market, for prices are now 
on the downward scale, and it does not pay to 
hold them once they are in condition. 

March pullets should be laying this month. 

Keep track of the different lots of cockerels, 
and your different breedings by a system of 
banding the birds. 

We do not advocate warm poultry buildings, 
but we do insist that they must be dry and free 
from draught. 

Now the July pullets of last year will give a 
nice yield of eggs at prices that pay handsomely. 
If for table eggs let the birds stay in the house 
all summer, in fact after they go into winter 
quarters never let them out of the house again, 
and you will get a larger egg yield. 

Begin to get things pulled together for win- 
ter; it is some ways off but it will soon be 
here. 

Eggs getting scarce and higher. 

September-hatched chickens should be brood- 
ed in small brooders and coops. 

Prepare the hens now for fall and winter lay- 
ing. Prepare the pullets also. 

Each brood of chickens from one year's end 
to another should have a new spot of land to 
grow on, but this is particularly true of late or 
hot-weather hatches. Be sure all roofs over 
your plant are tight ; if not, make them so. 
Change the sand or gravel before the fall rains, 
and whitewash or disinfect all winter quarters. 

Page Fifty-three 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 




Most buyers make the mistake of not provid- 
ing enough space for the youngsters after they 
hatch. 

Get the regular fall cleaning done and by the 
latter part of the month have everything ready 
for a quick shift if there is need. 

More birds start in the wrong direction and 
toward a winter sickness in September than in 
any other month. 

Keep up a spraying. 

Feed every atom they will eat. 

■ SEPTKMBKR DISEASES 

The vv^ay to cure colds and roup is to prevent 
them. See that your stock is always cool at 
night with plenty of roosting room, and watch 
them carefully when you move them — that they 
don't get overheated in bags or boxes. 

"Going-Light" is a diseased condition that is 
hard to cure, caused by too much poor quality 
meat supply. The axe is about the best remedy. 



Page Fifty-four 



s 




STARTING IN OCTOBER. 

Starting in October, get your house in order 
as soon as you can. Then buy well matured pul- 
lets to provide table eggs, and the mixed varie- 
ties will do just as well as the more expensive, 
full-blooded breeds. For breeding stock, pur- 
chase only full blooded, either yearlings or well 
matured pullets will be satisfactory. Give breed- 
ing stock plenty of exercise out of doors daily. 
La^^ers should be kept closed in. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

This is the right month to have your winter 
layers start in. If they begin much earlier than 
this they are not as good layers as a rule, and 
sometimes get broody and moult. 

Divide the pullets into small flocks, being care- 
ful to keep each size and age and color by itself, 
for best results — unless mixed colors have been 
raised together. The smaller the flock, the fast- 
er they will develop. 

Eggs steadily advancing in price and giving 
good profits, in fact as good as during the cold 
winter season. 




Egg5 steadily 
increasing 
in price. 



Page Fifty-five 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Tills is your 

fault 
Lool^in 




Live poultry dealers in all the large cities take 
care of all the odds and ends. Send them the 
old hens, old cocks, chickens, surplus pullets, 
in fact, everything you wish to turn into cash. 
Ship them alive. 

Keep only what you can properly feed and 
care for — especially feed. 

Use plenty of good litter, the birds need exer- 
cise to keep in the condition that means profit- 
able poultry. 

Many bad cases of roup are started this month 
by allowing the chicks to lie around under the 
bushes in damp places. Better yard any that 
show a tendency to act this way, feed liberally, 
and use Roup Cure in drinking water. 

Keep the late chicks in the coops these frosty 
mornings. 

Feed them early before letting out. 

If breeding from pullets, mate with large, 
healthy, 2-yr. old cocks. There is no better 
mating than this. 

Some chickens grow one end at a time and 
during their early days are sometimes all legs, 
while later they mature into quite well propor- 
tioned stock; then again some of them have the 
appearance of standing still and making little 
progress for a month or more, when they shoot 
ahead again. All these should be weeded out, 
and a quick-growing, hearty-eating bird that was 
well proportioned at four or five pounds chosen. 

Select your next season's breeders now, and 
choose the ones that have made the most rapid 
growth as youngsters, i. e., the ones that have 



Page Fifty -six 



POINTERS 



reached the four to five pounds' weight in the 
least number of days. 

This does not mean the undersized, small, pre- 
cocious chap that gets "cocky" when very young. 
These are the very ones that you should avoid, 
for they will run the size of your stock down 
very rapidly if bred from. Choose rather the 
male bird that does not discover that he is a 
male until six or seven months of age. He has 
been busy putting bone and muscle together and 
he will make the right kind of chickens that do 
not "go hard" young. 

In the latitude of New England poultry should 
be in their winter quarters this month and 
everything snug and in shape for the cold 
winter which is now liable to come at any time. 

The secret of success is hard feeding and 
cleanliness. Keep up their appetites and keep 
down the vermin. 

Gather the leaves for litter. 

The farmer will have some cabbage that did 
not head up very well. It is just what you 
want. Spread it on the north side of the 
house and cover with about a foot of hay and 
leaves. 

Never allow anyone or anything to scare the 
chicks or fowl. 

If you are not getting a satisfactory egg yield 
see if you are housing and feeding your stock 
right. Be sure all the chickens are out of the 
trees before the cold rains start in, and when 
changing birds from the trees into the houses, 
see that the houses are as cold as they can be 




_^ Never allovr 



Page Fifty-seven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



ltm sc(y>2.> 




Windowj out 

5ub5titutc 
wdterprooi 
5lieeliiiJ. 



kept during the nights without having draughts 
striking the birds on the roosts. 

All your birds should be in winter quarters 
this month. The earlier March hatches should 
have been under cover last month and should 
now be laying quite steadily. It is always bet- 
ter to house them a month or six weeks before 
they begin to lay, for fall laying is against Na- 
ture's law and on the slightest provocation she 
steps in and puts an end to the unnatural pro- 
duction and it is hard work to regain the ground 
lost. 

OCTOBER DISEASES 

The one worst feature of the long houses is 
the tendency to draughts, and the likelihood of 
canker and other contagious troubles working 
from one pen to another. We prefer isolated 
flocks for money making every day in the year. 

When you move^the pullets into winter quar- 
ters, be sure that they are cool at night. Take 
out the windows, but see that they are not in a 
draught on the roosts. 



Page Fifty-eight 





STARTING IN NOVEMBER 

Starting this month, we find eggs at the ex- 
treme high figures of the year, and pullets or 
yearlings are very slow in commencing to lay. 
The night constitutes almost two-thirds of the 
twenty-four hours and it is hard for the birds 
to eat enough in the brief day to make up for 
the long nights and lay eggs at the same time. 

Get your house in position as quickly as pos- 
sible. 

Be sure to have plenty of litter, so that your 
birds' feet never get on the cold ground ; but 
still don't overdo it, for they will not scratch 
as well if litter is too deep. Just right is when 
they scratch down to the gravel every day. 

Buy your breeding cockerels this month, and 
get the first selection, and also be ready to get 
out the early broilers. 



GENKRAI, SUGGESTIONS 

Be sure every old hen is marketed before this ^ ^'KPJNG HOUPJ 
month is out unless you want them for breeders v_ 

another season, and fill up with pullets that pay 
better. 

Years ago, and not so many at that, we all 



15 flEDJNG HOUPj 
IN ^UMMEP 
AGAINST 




Page Fifty-nine 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



jiopaJl 



drdu<^}is 




LITTEE 
FOOT THICK 



irOOTcrEAPrH 



got up early, a lot before daylight, and started 
boiling water under the big kettle. Then we 
lugged the mash around to each pen, and we 
put down just what they would eat up clean in 
five minutes. We had shutters for the windows, 
roosting closets, every crack and crevice sealed 
up tight, warmed the water and the grain. 

Think of the steps we took, and then we didn't 
get half as many eggs as we do today with Egg 
Feed, open front houses, and cold water, Egg 
Feed fed once a week, and the hens are a lot 
healthier, our health is better, too, and our profits 
are more than double. 

November is a month of long nights and short 
days ; while during the summer months the birds 
are on the roosts eight hours or less and are 
busy eating the other sixteen, now the reverse 
is the rule and they should not be kept waiting 
a minute for the owner or attendant to feed 
them. The dry ground feed is always there, 
and as soon as it is light enough they can begin 
filling up, and naturally they are at it from 
morning until night. No chance for a feast, 
then a famine, as under the old system. This 
is why results are so much more certain with 
this method. 

Thousands of women are engaged in poultry 
keeping, finding it a sure and profitable method 
of making money, and city markets for live poul- 
try remove all the disagreeable features of kill- 
ing and marketing the birds. 

See that your house is banked up around the 
bottom so as to avoid draughts. 



Page Sixty 



One of the best helps toward keeping the 
quarters dry in winter, at a nominal cost, is to 
have the floor well littered to the depth of from 
three to six inches with dirt, cut straw, hay or 
leaves. This protects against loss of heat and 
prevents cold currents from below, and may also 
be used in which to scatter the grain to keep the 
fowls active. 

You should be getting a good supply of eggs 
from March and April pullets and the May- 
hatches should be starting in. Keep the differ- 
ent ages by themselves so that the younger ones 
are not "bossed" around. Kept separated they 
will mature much faster. 

Push everything to market early this month, 
as the late holiday markets are seldom satisfac- 
tory, except for very large choice eight to nine- 
pound fancy capons. These it might pay to 
hold, but really they should have gone to market 
two months ago when prices were better. July 
and August chickens should be pretty well 
feathered out and able to care for themselves 
if properly housed. 

Eggs bring long prices this month and poultry 
is at the low point for the year. 

November is, on the whole, a bad month to 
market fowl and chickens. Turkeys have the 
right of way, and so many unposted producers 
rush in fowl and chickens that the market is 
usually glutted and prices run low. 

The more vigorous the male, the larger the 
percentage of good pullets from the mating. 

The poultry will stand almost any degree of 




Page Sixty-one 




Dry f^et — 
plenty ^ 



cold, but draughts mean sure trouble. If there 
is any sign of a cold, use some roup cure. 

Keep the hoppers full. The hens are keeping 
union hours now. They say the way to a man's 
heart is through his stomach. You must jolly 
the hen the same way. 

Better gather your eggs for hatching several 
times a day; during this kind of weather eggs 
quickly chill. 

Treat the pullets the best you know how and 
your reward will be sure and ample. 

Give your birds plenty of air, with the south 
side open day and night. 

It is not always necessary to supply grit, but 
as it is so cheap, you cannot afford to take 
chances. The hens need it for best results. 

NOVEMBER DISEASES 

Getting out on the cold ground, walking 
around in the snow and slush, damp litter, all 
stop your birds from laying. Don't try to keep 
your birds warm but keep them dry at whatever 
cost. Keep them scratching. 

The circulation of the blood is very active 
through the hen's foot, and she cannot devote 
her feed to making eggs if it takes too much of 
it to keep her feet warm. 



Page Sixty-two 




STARTING IN DECEMBER 
Starting in December is much like starting in 
January and the same rules as November apply. 
Depend upon early hatched pullets to get eggs 
this month. Keep the birds dry. Get strong, 
fertile eggs from yearling hens. Don't put over 
eight females with a male at this season of the 
year. 

Get them all out of doors every day and the 
eggs will hatch much better. Dig off the snow 
in front of the coop, making a space equal in 
size to the size of the pen. Feed them Scratch 
Feed outside in some litter so they will scratch 
in the open air for it. This means some extra 
work, but fertile eggs in winter are worthy of 
a good deal of extra labor. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

Cut out the leaks, not only in the coop, but 
in your business. If you have a lot of old hens 
that do not look like laying right away, market 
them. 

This is the month when "eggs is eggs." 
If you have a lot of cockerels that are not big 
enough for breeders, or any old cocks that you 
are not going to use, market them. 




15 



f 



■sr- 



Page Sixty-three 



m^. 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



mrw: 




30^ 



WhelliCT you believe 
it or Tiot. thj 
15 a]Iri$Jht» • 



Get your birds into small flocks. Get them 
settled down for the winter. Get late hatched 
pullets in place of two-year-old hens. They will 
pay better. 

Don't let your market egg layers out of doors 
under any condition during the winter months, 
and keep their pens well littered. There is a 
wonderful lot of blood circulating through their 
feet, and they won't lay if they stand around in 
mud and snow all day. 

Keep in airy houses with liberal sized open- 
ings in the south side which are never closed 
night or day. 

In selecting breeders for the broiler or roaster 
that is to be hatched next month, choose the 
male as per suggestions in October, and select 
females that are of good size, hardy, vigorous 
breeders, birds that from the shell up have never 
known what it was to lose a feed. We strongly 
favor the large American varieties for all pur- 
poses, for they lay as well and make much better 
poultry than the smaller breeds. Select hens, 
yearlings, that are well through the moulting and 
about ready to lay, or pullets that have been well 
matured before starting to lay, thus insuring 
good sized eggs ; mate not over six or eight 
females with a male that has been kept away 
from all females until this time, and the chances 
are you will get eggs that will hatch those strong, 
rugged chickens that will live through tornado, 
earthquakes and blizzards. 

December and January-hatched chickens ma- 
ture in June, bringing highest prices of the year. 



Page Sixty-four 



POINTERS 



Keep charcoal in front of your poultry all the 
time. 

Vigor is only another way of spelling health. 
If your breeders are healthy, strong birds, and 
your house is open so that they practically roost 
and live in the open air twenty-four hours a day, 
and if you feed as we direct, the chickens will 
be vigorous and healthy, and you will raise every 
one you put in small heatless brooders. 

Have you purchased your stock of breeding 
cockerels? It's a good time now before the 
stock gets culled over. 

Keep the hens busy. Dry leaves make the 
best kind of litter. 

It is nice to have the house whitewashed so 
that it will not be so dark on stormy days. 

Sort over your pullets and if you have more 
than you can take care of properly, send the 
surplus to market. 

Keep an egg record. Try to have an intelli- 
gent idea of what your poultry costs you and 
what it returns. 

See that you have plenty of eggs and that the 
poultry is all marketed or is growing along to 
maturity for the better prices of another season. 

This is the month of highest prices for eggs 
and bottom prices for poultry. 

It is a good idea to use some roup cure in 
the drinking water. 'Trevention is better than 
cure." 

See that your birds are eating every minute 
of the time from leaving the roosts until they 
get back on them, for they now spend nearly 




Fresh' air 
for Poultry 
ioo: 






Page Sixty-five 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Oivdy to jtuJJ 
ih hens during 
dhoji ieedin^r 
Houx/. 




two-thirds of their time on the perches and 
must eat continuously to get enough to lay all 
the eggs you expect. 

Accept our hearty wishes for a happy New 
Year. 

DECEMBER DISEASES 

In December practically the only disease to 
guard against is roup, and this is really the 
only one in the business to fear — and fear this 
we must, as it is the worst of them all; in fact 
is worse than all the others combined, and at 
that it is a disease resulting from carelessness 
or ignorance. 

Give the birds good air to breathe at all times, 
treat them as though they were hardy and strong 
from the time they are hatched, and they will 
be strong and free from disease. 

Baby them, pamper them, raise them in heated 
buildings, keep them in tight houses — and you 
will have continuous trouble. 



Page Sixty-six 




Vitality is largely inherited, and without vital- 
ity our work and pains are thrown away. If 
we do not have good, strong parent stock the 
chickens will be weak, puny things that are 
worse than useless. Experienced poultrymen 
will testify that such stock is of no value; in 
fact, is a curse to anyone, their care nothing 
but a continual worry, and their survival only 
a deferred disappointment. Better pay double 
the price for good, strong, robust stock than to 
have the other kind given to you. 

Assuming that you have the kind of stock 
described above, and that the chickens are 
hatched, we will try to outline a simple system 
of care and management that will bring them 
to laying in good season. 

Now, to get early fall and winter eggs, or in 
fact to get any kind of success with poultry, 
we must study nature and her methods. 

You have all noted that Red-root or Pig- 
weeds that come up in a vacant lot late in 
September or October have a different habit of 
growth than when beginning to grow in the 
early spring. In the spring the habits of the 

Page Sixty-nine r 




you never jocd 

Pobin build atcrt 
durinc iHc ■fdJ[ 

J jnomur. 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



Sironqr 
l^rent 
.5ioc 











fobuJt 



n 



plant are apparently on the broad gauge plan. 
The branching stalks and main stem are wide 
and thick, intended to grow to large size before 
bearing seed, and if left unhampered to grow 
as started on rich soil, the plant will reach a 
height of 5 or 6 ft. before any blossom buds 
appear. Now the same seed in the same soil 
sprouting in October will grow with another 
plan of life altogether. Instead of the thick 
stem and branching habit it shoots up a small 
dwarf habit stem less than 6 inches in height 
before blossom buds appear. This is simply 
nature's recognition of the fact that the growing 
season is past, that the harvest time is near, and 
whatever seed is borne must be produced in 
haste. The plant's form is shaped with this end 
in view, and is brought to bearing in its limited 
time and on a dwarfed frame. 

Now, the springtime is nature's season of 
breeding. Among practically all the wild ani- 
mals the young are produced during the spring 
months. It matters very little when your pullets 
are hatched, they will lay in February, March 
and April anyway. If these chickens are hatched 
in May, June or July and improperly fed or half 
starved, allowed to shift for themselves, they 
will come to laying during these months. The 
same is true of August, September or October- 
hatched pullets. They too will lay in February, 
March and April, but they will not be so well 
developed. Their bodies will be small, and their 
eggs will be undersized. So too, will pullets 
hatched in January and February get to laying 

Paqe Seventy 



INCOME 






in May or June. Nature, recognizing the Spring 
as the breeding or producing season, hurries 
these birds, hatched, according to her calendar, 
late on the last growing period, and sets them 
to laying, very small eggs to be sure, but eggs, 
and eggs that will hatch. Of course the pullets 
are small, and never make the frames they would 
have grown had they been hatched at the proper 
season. 

This is simply to show that nature has a period 
of seed time, of growth, and another of harvest 
or maturity. Now, she times that period of 
growth with all her children when the feed is 
most plentiful. You never see the robin or blue- 
bird, the deer or moose building nests or bearing 
young at any other time than during the early 
spring or summer when the feed is most abund- 
ant, giving the young ample time and feed for 
maturing before the winter season. 




'k^U. 





Now, man in his manipulation of nature's 
laws, as regards the hen, by creating an abnor- 
mal appetite and laying habit, has a bird that 
under some conditions breeds or produces eggs 
in the off season or fall and winter months. 
Left to herself to pick her own living the hen 
would only lay during the spring and summer 
months, and we are sure that those eggs would 
hatch much better than those produced by our 



Orowi 
versus 

(jrowtJt 



Page Seventy-one 



[ ^^^^J ^^ \ POULTRY GUIDE POST-)||{^' 




perpetual machine that is laying five to ten times 
as many eggs as Nature intended her to. 

The burning question is. why don't we get as 
many eggs during the fall and winter season as 
during the spring and summer? Really, is not 
the question, WHY DO WE GET ANY EGGS 
DURING THE FALL AND WINTER ? 

If we stop to consider the effects of years of 
breeding of our domestic animals we will find 
that the improvements have been along the line 
of increased capacity for food, resulting in in- 
creased productiveness. In the milch cow the 
development of her appetite and productiveness 
has probably increased her size 200 per cent, to 
400 per cent., and her milk yield in the full year 
from 200 per cent, to 800 per cent, over cattle 
in a state of nature. 




We xmsi study 
Bdturo 



In the horse we have the largest specimen, 
weighing 2000 to 2500 pounds, and if we are 
to believe the naturalist these have been devel- 
oped from animals weighing less than the little 
donkeys our children played with. Compare the 
old razor-back hog wnth enormous weight of 
some of the show Berkshire or White Chesters 
of today, weighing from 1000 to 1500 pounds. 

All these cases cited sift down to man's man- 
ipulation and increase in the capacity of the 

Page Seventy-two 



f^^^^^^ A^ 



INCOME 



bl^^ 



animal to assimilate more feed than its ances- 
tors and put it to the uses sought. 

Now, in poultry just as wonderful changes 
have been wrought. In our domestic hen in 
place of the jungle fowl laying one or two 
clutches of eggs, perhaps 25 or 30 eggs in the 
spring months, we are not satisfied unless we 
get from 150 to 200 and want them all when 
eggs are at the highest prices. 

Mankind has certainly done wonderful things 
with our feathered pets but cannot stand nature 
on her head altogether. We must continue to 
court her favors and try to lead her along the 
road we wish her to follow, but we must remem- 
ber that while she is willing as long as we con- 
sider her whims and caprices, occasionally she 
balks and wrecks our aspirations in mid air, 
when her laws are disregarded, and we come to 
earth with a dull thud. 

In the past, amateur enthusiasts have con- 
ceived the idea that the birds laid in spring and 
summer because it was warm weather, and figur- 
ing on this basis without consulting Dame Na- 
ture, they constructed expensive buildings with 
elaborate heating systems, endeavoring to try to 
convince the birds that spring time had come, 
even if the sun did rise at seven o'clock and set 
at four. Their attempts have all failed for the 
very important reason that the birds were not 
adapted to live in stifled air and heated quarters, 
and that eggs are not dependent upon warmth. 
Colds, roup and kindred ailments put these plants 
out of business in short order. 




;^^r' 




p 

Anytliiiiq tliat 

Cacklcj^ 

a wearj 

:fedthci5 

will la^ in 

the Winffii 



Page Seventy-three 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




To produce this five or ten-fold increase of 
Qgg yield over what nature intended, we must 
continue to crowd the right kind of feed into 
the birds in about the proportion we expect eggs. 
In the state of nature the birds hatched in the 
spring laid the next spring, or at about the age 
of ten months. Now we hear all kinds of pro- 
tests if the pullets do not get to laying at five 
and six months of age, and in many cases where 
they have not been more than half fed at that. 
Taking ten months to develop in a mild climate 
they required very little feed and effort to secure 
it, especially as the birds were very much smaller 
than our birds of today. One of our American 
* variety pullets should weigh from five to six 
pounds at six months of age. The jungle fowl 
-»- weighed perhaps 2^ lbs. at ten months of age. 
How much more food must our well-bred bird 
consume to double this Jungle fowl's weight in 
half the time? 

Supposing our American variety pullets are 
hatched in March or April how soon may we 
expect them to lay? Nature would start the 
Jungle fowl with the intention of bringing her 
to laying maturity at ten months of age, and 
with a productiveness of perhaps twelve eggs 
as her first litter, and a weight of 2 lbs. to make. 
She would require probably less than 25 per 
cent, food and ten months to get it in. It's a 
long, slow, growing period with a lighter pro- 
duction at the end of it, soon broken up with 
three weeks of incubation. 

We expect Miss Plymouth Rock to start lay- 



Page Seventy-four 



INCOME 



l^. 



ing promptly at nine o'clock in the morning of 
the day she is five months of age, and continue 
one tgg a day during the short winter days when 
she has about 7 hours on the floor of the pen 
and 17 hours on the roost, until the next spring 
or summer; not only that, but we wonder why 
the eggs don't hatch as many chicks as were put 
in the machine, and why the chicks die in the 
shell and why they don't all live. 

First of all, to bring Miss Plymouth Rock to 
laying at five to six months of age and have her 
up to the weight we wish, we must pour a con- 
stant stream of rich, nourishing food through 
her alimentary canal from the moment she is 
hatched. Every moment her digestive machin- 
ery is without material to build on is lost. If 
we start during infancy with scanty feeding, 
nature changes her plan from a wide-tailed big 
stocky bird to one of two-thirds or half the size, 
with a pinched and generally half-starved ap- 
pearance. 

We are very firm believers in the prenatal 
influence of full feeding. We think that to get 
heavy laying pullets, they must be well fed dur- 
ing their growing period else Nature thinks these 
birds are born to endure privation and short 
rations, and thus she dwarfs their future pro- 
ductiveness to suit the conditions under which 
they are developing. 

If Miss Ply- 
mouth Rock is 
well started and 
pushed with the 





Page Seventy-five 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




Nothii9doin9r 
on "file 
nc6ts 



right kind of food always within reach she will 
easily outgrow her ancestors, and having Nature 
always with her to prompt the development of 
her system for a period of plenty she will pro- 
duce eggs of good size and frequency. But she 
must not be held back with unsuitable conditions 
or feed for a single moment from the shell up, 
and she must be kept in housing conditions that 
promote her steady addition to the natural hardi- 
ness inherited from her parents. 

Hothouse conditions she cannot withstand, but 
given a suitable cold house with an abundance 
of fresh air, without draught, and plenty of 
food always within reach, she will lay more 
eggs than her ancestors, and go on as one of 
the links in the chain of the better producers 
we are seeking. 

The birds are ravenous eaters, and what else 
\ &ii- ^^^ ^^ expected if we consider what enormous 
producers they are when conditions suit them. 
They must have a large amount of feed to de- 
velop into this size and in the limited number of 
months we expect, and the feed must be rich, 
palatable and constantly before them. Whole 
grain will not produce the results we are look- 
ing for, since we have so increased the diges- 
tive capacity of the intestines, we have not yet 
greatly increased the efficiency of the gizzard, 
with the result that we must feed a large pro- 
portion of the feed in a finely ground state to 
give the intestines enough to do. Otherwise 
they are constantly waiting for the gizzard to 
send along some more material, and the result 



Page Seventy-six 



INCOME 



is lost ground, lessened growth and limited pro- 
duction. 

Meat food is absolutely necessary. The 
growth and development we seek cannot and 
will not come from vegetable sources altogether. 
Animal protein we must have; and the only 
question remaining is in what form? We strong- 
ly advise the mixing of the meat food with the 
ground, whole grain, just as we have it in Grow- 
ing Feed, years of study and experiment 
having demonstrated that this is the most ^^^4"!^^ 
palatable form, and productive of the maxi- 
mum growth without any disturbance of the 
liver. 

The birds in some sections get quite a little 
of their living from the grasshoppers and 
other bugs and worms, but be sure that in 
addition to this they always have some appe- 
tizing food constantly within reach so that 
the grasshoppers will be a little dessert and -^ 
not the whole meal. 

Be sure that a liberal percentage of the 
food is meat, from the hatch to the hatchet, 
and let it be meat of good quality. 

March or April-hatched pullets of the 
American varieties may or may not lay in 
September, October or November. If they 
have been well fed and properly cared for 
they will start laying during these months. 
On the other hand, if only half fed, allowed 
to find their own living, kept in small, ill ven- 
tilated quarters, crowded and stunted, or sub- 
jected to any one of the above handicaps, they 

Page Seventy-seven 




Compare 

" Td jor- tack^ 
Woqs oi 



a.^ 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



^^^ 



will very likely hold back their eggs until the 
natural time for laying, February or March. 

It is very easy to revert to the natural habit 
of spring and summer laying only. It requires 
good feed and care to overcome the natural 
tendency, and splendid returns come to those 
who master the problem. 

Bringing the pullets along through the sum- 
mer months in roomy, cool roosting coops, with 
plenty of green food and shade, and an abund- 
ance of rich, palatable food, always within easy 
access, the early fall months should see them 
rounding out into large., well-developed, wide- 




Henj are 
ravenoii^ 







tailed, henny-looking pullets that gain the size 
of their parents before beginning to drop their 
eggs. They have enjoyed full feeding during 
the natural growing period, and the fall finds 
them entirely matured and in the same state of 
development to which a scanty feeder would 
bring his birds in February or March. 

We have taken advantage of Nature's teach- 
ing to grow the birds during the growing season, 
and she has rewarded us with a finished product 
in one-half the time she originally took to pro- 
duce it. If we take the same pullet all ready to 
lay, transport her from one house to another, 
radically change the feed and care, our hopes 
may not materialize. 

Page Seventy-eight 



INCOME 



It is not the natural season for eggs, and too 
much abuse just as the birds are about to begin 
production will sometimes throw them back even 
so far as to wait until the spring season. It is 
best to get -the pullets settled in their permanent 
winter quarters a month or more before they 
would lay, and after they have been placed to- 
gether no change of the personnel of the pens 
permitted. Strangers introduced from time to 
time cause more or less scrapping and disturb- 
ance, and all go to interrupt egg production. 
During the unnatural season for eggs seemingly 
trivial matters and excuses cause the egg pro- 
duction to stop, whereas, during the flood tide 
of eggs in the spring season apparently one can 
go to almost any extreme with shifting, feeding, 
et cetera, without affecting the egg yield ma- 
terially. 

We may confidently expect eggs during the 
off season from early hatched pullets and from 
yearling hens that were early hatched the previ- 
ous spring; having laid early during the pre- 
ceding fall and winter they have been indiffer- 
ent layers during the summer months, have 
moulted early and with proper feed and care are 
ready to begin their second season's work early. 

From the foregoing it would seem that only 
one class of pullets are desirable, — the early 
hatched. This, however, is not as we see it. 
We all like the early hatched, but we find that 
if our birds are all early hatched, within a rea- 
sonable space of time they will come to laying 
together, providing of course, that they all re- 





5'Tnonlb 1o flu? d&\j c^nd 
jncnuit tfiey ocpecl hei- 
h q^d ai ific nejt 
and W 



Page Seventy-nine 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




A /boa-tide 
in the 



ceive the same treatment. Again, they would 
all moult at the same period and we would be 
at a standstill for eggs. 

We have seen the habits and natural tenden- 
cies with the early hatched pullet. Now let us 
consider another class of birds, heretofore re- 
garded as of very little value. — the late hatched, 
or the June and July chickens. These have 
their work to do, and also do it just as well if 
we understand them. 

Carefully kept and well fed, they come to 
laying maturity in December, January and Feb- 
ruary. Beginning later, they go through the 
spring in better form, and when their early 
hatched sisters are moulting these late birds are 
still laying heavily, and as they have three 
months' time to make up, having begun three 
months later, they continue good, strong work 
right through August, September and October, 
stopping then for a short, quick moult, dropping 
the feathers almost all at once, and getting a new 
set very rapidly, whereas, the early hatched birds 
begin to drop their feathers in July or August 
and take three or four months for a very 
leisurely, ladylike change of clothing. To be 
sure they expose their bodies less, but the 
Salome dance ruling does not extend to the 
poultry yard, and results of the &gg basket rather 
than beauty of bird are what we are seeking. 
It will be seen that the late hatched pullet fills 
her place and gives us eggs when they are quite 
scarce and hard to get. Prices are good and the 
eggs come with very little effort in feed and care. 



Page Eighty 



>-^-ng^^J^^ 



INCOME 



Now if these pullets be purchased there is 
even more to be said in their favor. The early 
hatched are the kind that everybody is seeking, 
and the price is consequently bound to be high. 
These late ones are looked down upon, and not 
only bring a less price per pound, but as they 
are light in weight the total price is small indeed. 

Put into the pens in October or November, 
weighing 2 to 3 pounds, they cost 40c. to 60c. 
each, while the early ones weighing 4 to 5 lbs. 
cost $1.00 to $1.25 each. Now when the time 
comes to go to market the early ones weigh 
about the same as when purchased, while the 
smaller ones have gained to about the size of 
the larger ones, and bring nearly, if not quite 
enough to purchase more small pullets to take 
their places. 

The early ones must take quite a loss, as they 
are no more valuable as market poultry, cost 
quite a bit more per pound, and weighed heavier 
at the start. To be sure they got to laying 
earlier, but on the other hand they stopped 
earlier. 

When the books are balanced at the end of 
the year it will be found that in many cases the 
late hatched birds have paid as much per head 
as the earlier ones. If these late hatched birds 
be wintered it will be found that they begin 
laying very nearly as soon as their medium 
early hatched sisters, and carry the same char- 
acteristics of late fall laying through the next 
season, although for this market egg business 
we favor the changing of the full stock each 




Disturbed 
?top laying. 



Page Bighty-one 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



mmjC(yy2.Q 




,fc. 



fall, either raising or purchasing an entire new 
lot. 

We have tried to outline the natural tendency 
of the different classes of birds. Now, let us 
consider what we can do to increase the laying 
habit in the off season. 

It will be acknowledged that almost every- 
thing from a feather duster to one of these new 
Easter bonnets will lay during the spring months. 
Anything that cackles and wears feathers and 
has half a chance to live will lay when Nature 
prompts her to do her best. For this reason we 
need take no credit upon ourselves for the large 
egg record during the spring months. The time 
for us to put out our best efforts is when Nature 
is urging her birds to "go slow" and take a rest. 

We must push the early hatched pullets with 
liberal feeding of meat-laden food all through 
the growing period, then follow this with every- 
thing to whet her appetite and increase her pro- 
ductiveness while she is laying during the fall 
and winter. During the early spring she will 
lay anyway, for nature tells her to do so. But 
after the early spring is passed she is pretty 
nearly "all in" so far as eggs are concerned, and 
is either broody or loafing, laying very short 
litters between fits of broodiness or starting 
slow moults that will last for three or five 
months. 

Now if in May we give her a change of 
diet, — for instance, shift from Egg Feed to a 
ration of Growing Feed with ten to fifteen per 
cent, of a good quality of meat scraps, the 

Page Bighty-two 



INCOME 



^Lffl^^ 



change of diet tickles her faihng appetite and 
she eats ravenously of the new ration, gains 
flesh and lays a splendid lot of eggs during the 
following sixty days, when to our mind we have 
pretty well milked her out and she should go to 
market. 

Now the late hatched birds as they are not 
allowed so much time during the growing period 
should be pushed harder, with, say a five or ten 
per cent, addition of scraps to the Growing Feed. 
They should be given yards and runs in which 
no birds have been kept for twelve months at 
least, and in smaller flocks than the earlier ones, 
not over 25 at most. 

They have nature with them prompting the 
laying in February anyway, so we have only to 
encourage them with the extra ration of scraps 
to get them going a month or six weeks earlier, 
so we are seldom disappointed in their laying, 
usually getting eggs before we expect them, 
which is always pleasant. 

During the spring months, like all the rest of 
poultrydom, they will lay under almost any kind 
of treatment and feed, so we had better rest on 
our oars and drift with the current until early 
summer, say about July, when we should begin 
the treatment previously outlined for the early 
hatched ones. 

All our experience with poultry teaches us 
that the heavy feeders make the money, and 
any addition to the diet which will allow in- 
creased feeding with safety will more than cor- 
respondingly increase the profit. 




Tost OH yOun 

oarzs, 
ard drift Willi 

the current 




Page Bighty-three 




There is much discussion of the steadily in- 
creasing cost of living, and with very good rea- 
son, — *'it hits us where we live." For several 
years past the cost of all kinds of food stuffs has 
steadily increased, and this is especially true of 
beef, mutton and pork, which have advanced 
in price with alarming rapidity in the past few 
years. Nor is there any prospect of better con- 
ditions in these meat-foods, for the good and 
sufficient reason that a steadily increasing de- 
mand for food stuffs is met by a steadily dimin- 
ishing supply of these products; to the inex- 
orable law of supply and demand is due (in 
the main) the steady advance in prices. 

The population of the United States is in- 
creasing at a rate which means that each year 
there are a million more mouths to be fed than 
there Avere the year before. Over against this 
fact there has to be set the further fact of les- 
sened production, due to the settling of the lands 
of the far west and south-west, and the turn- 
ing of the great cattle and sheep ranges into 
small farms which are used for diversified farm- 
ing, a factor which effects a change in the pro- 




c^& 



Page Eighty-five 



^j^^j^ruJji^- 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



portion of consumers to producers of food 
products, especially in the States east of the 
Mississippi River where the concentration of 
people in the cities and manufacturing towns 
is most marked. As it is apparent that it is the 
younger and more vigorous of the population 
who move to the towns and cities, so it becomes 
evident that not only the number but the effi- 
ciency of the producers is being diminished while 
an increased consumption has to be cared for. 

Statistics furnished by the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture tell us that there were 
produced in 1910, 2,000,000 fewer beef cattle 
and 6,000,000 fewer hogs than were produced 
the year previous. The shrunken beef produc- 
tion is accounted for by the change in conditions 
in the west and southwest mentioned above ; the 
lesser pork production is explained by the ex- 
tremely high price, which induced the farmer to 
sell his young stock in place of making breeders 
of them. 



This suburbanite 

thought he had no PpC] 

room for poultry 

keeping. ^-:>;^ ^"^^^J^C, 




Page Eighty-six 



^mMmMi 



CPPORTUNITY 



^iJ^j^kh^m 



A natural outgrowth of this lessened food sup- 
ply and increased demand is a turning to other 
sources of supply, foremost among which stand 
poultry-meat and eggs. That these articles of 
food are well appreciated is made evident by the 
fact that in the single state of Massachusetts there 
is consumed each year over $30,000,000 worth 
of them, and it is a very significant fact that only 
some five millions of dollars' worth of these 
products are grown within the state. That is to 
say, the people of the State of Massachusetts 
pay out each year over $25,000,000 for poultry- 
meat and eggs produced outside its limits. 

In view of these facts it would seem wise for 
us to consider whether we cannot become pro- 
ducers of at least a portion of these foods, for 
our own households. Few of us realize the 
possibilities of a small flock of poultry in the 
back yard, and although we do realize the sat- 
isfaction there is in fresh-laid eggs for the break- 
fast table, we do not know how easily the eggs 




Same yard with four 
No- Yard houses and 
garden. 



Page Eighty-seven 



j^^^j -^r^ 



LTRY GUIDE POST 



An unsightly back 
yard, producing 
nothing but regrets. 



can be secured, nor how cheaply, at a cost of 
about a cent a piece for the food. The man 
who has a few square feet of room in the back 
yard may have the luxury of a constant supply 
of deliciously fresh eggs for the breakfast table 
and the family cooking at low cost, by simply 
taking advantage of the recent developments in 
methods of poultry keeping. 

We all know the attractiveness, the delicious 
flavor of fresh-laid eggs, and how very far short 
of that attractive flavor are the cold-storage eggs 
which we receive, as ''fresh" from the grocer 
or provision dealer. If it can be demonstrated 
that we can all have the genuine article, pro- 
duced right in our own back yard at such small 
cost, surely we will hasten to add a small poul- 
try house and flock of laying pullets to our pos- 
sessions and become independent of the c'bld 
storage and semi-stale eggs -previously expe- 
rienced. Furthermore, we will eat decidedly 
more of them. Finding them eminently satis- 
factory, we turn to them again; they are ''so 




Page Eighty-eight 



OPPORTUNITY 



different" from the strong-flavored and unattrac- 
tive eggs which we all eat under compulsion or 
because we are still in ignorance of the real qual- 
ity of the home-made article. 

Does one reader object that he hasn't room to 
give his flock of fowls an outside run? An out- 
side run is wholly unnecessary; the birds need 
never step foot outside the confines of the poul- 
try house. This is one of the recent develop- 
ments in poultry keeping, that when the flock is 
not kept for breeding but for egg-production 
alone the No- Yard system is quite as satisfac- 
tory, and gives even better results than where 
a considerable amount of ground is given to them 
to range over. This No- Yard system of keeping 
fowls is a wholly new idea to those who have 
been accustomed to see the fowls ranging all 
over the farm and garden and over the neighbors' 
gardens also. It works out perfectly, however, 
where the fowls are kept solely for egg-produc- 
tion, the birds being carried through one laying 
season only; being gradually killed for the fam- 




Same yard now 
paying a large part, 
of the rent. 



Page Eighty-nine 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



ily table or sold off to market in the late sum- 
mer, and a new stock of laying pullets being in- 
stalled in the house each fall. The flock is fed 
for eggs and lays eggs, and late in the summer 
any that have escaped the family's growing ap- 
petite for fresh killed fowl are shipped to market 
alive in time to clean and white-wash the house, 
making it ready for the new flock of pullets in 
October. 

Does another reader object that he sends his 
family away to the seashore or the old hom.e in 
the country directly after the schools close in 
June, and that he does not care to have a flock 
of fowls on his hands through the summer? The 
birds that are left on hand the last of June can 
be closed out to the hen-cart man, at a price 
closely approximating the first cost of the pul- 
lets, the very day before the wife and children 
flit from the home nest. Here is one illustra- 
tion: — In the fall an acquaintance purchased a 
flock of twenty mixed pullets for twenty dol- 
lars and installed them in a small house which 



A vacant lot adjoin- 
ing a village home. 
The taxes were 
heavy and the 
income nothing. 




Page Ninety 



OPPORTUNITY 



he had built of lumber from old packing cases 
in his back yard. From that date to July 7th 
following, he paid $19.50 for their feed; total 
capital and expense $39.50. During this period 
he sold to the grocer and used in his family 
eggs to the value of $80.89 J the eggs used by the 
family being credited at the market prices of 
the time. 

On July 7th, the following year, he moved his 
family into the country, to their summer home, 
and sold the hens to a hen-cart man for $10.12, 
making a total for eggs and hens sold of $91.01. 
Deducting the cost of feed bought and pullets 
we have $51.5,1 net profit on an investment of 
$20.00. Over and above that was the great 
satisfaction of having an abundance of eggs 
fresh from the nests for the family table. 

An illustration of the rapid growth in popu- 
larity of this family flock idea is found in the 
experience of a poultryman living just outside 
the city of Toronto. A friend living in the city, 
having a small back yard to his house, bought a 




Same lot now pays 
the taxes and a nice 
income besides. 



Page Ninety-one 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



flock of ten pullets from him some half dozen 
years ago. This flock gave him an ample supply 
of fresh-laid eggs for home use and some to 
sell to his less fortunate friends and towards 
spring the family began eating a hen now and 
then as the appetite craved poultry-meat. When 
the family went away to the country for the sum- 
mer the remaining birds were sold to the mar- 
ketman. The city-man's friends envied him his 
good fortune, in his having fresh-laid eggs all 
through the fall, winter and spring and they got 
busy to provide the same blessing for their fam- 
ilies, the net result being that our poultryman 
friend now has twenty-one families to whom he 
supplies a flock of ten, twelve or fifteen ready- 
to-lay pullets each October. All these families 
can credit to their backyard poultry plant greater 
health, wealth and happiness. 

A man may feel that he cannot easily spare 
the time to feed and care for a flock of fowls. 
By the up-to-date methods of poultry keeping, a 



Another suburban 
residence, the lady 
owner of which 
needed an income. 




Page Ninety-two 



OPPORTUNITY 



ten-year-old boy or girl can throw out to them 
the few handfuls of scratch feed in mid-after- 
noon, after coming from school. Then again 
it is no small advantage to a family to have an 
easy method of disposing of table and kitchen 
waste; the table and kitchen scraps of the ordi- 
nary family will half feed a flock of fowls, and 
gives them a much enjoyed variety of food. 
All the rest of the chores can be done in a 
few minutes after supper, the most important 
part of this last being the filling of the Egg 
Feed hoppers and the emptying of the drink- 
ing fountains so that the water shall not freeze 
in cold weather. In cold weather, too, the 
eggs should be gathered from the nests two 
or three times during the day to prevent their 
freezing. 

Another man may say that he hasn't any chick- 
en house. One suitable for a small flock can 
be quickly and cheaply built out of lumber from 
a few old boxes; if we want something more 
attractive, ready-made poultry houses that are 




Same yard with 
poultry paying all 
expenses. 



Page Ninety-three 



is^^i^^^^m 


POULTRY GUIDE POST 


^^PQ^^^ 



handy, convenient and attractive can be bought 
at moderate cost. These houses are shipped 
^'knocked-down", can be quickly assembled and 
erected, and can be easily and quickly separated 
into several parts for removal if desired, as in 
the case of the family moving to another home. 
The No- Yard house is an excellent portable 
house, well adapted for a flock of a dozen to fif- 
teen fowls. A description and illustration of this 
house seems desirable, and we give it on 
page 122. 

It is not our intention in this chapter to enter 
into a discussion of the merits or demerits of 
any housing systems, but our experience, com- 
bined with thousands of successful poultrymen 
has proven to our satisfaction that in recom- 
mending the "open-front" house to the public 
we are advocating a system that has many ad- 
vantages over any other. 

A more complete outline of housing is given 
in the chapter by that title in this book, pages 
117 to 128. 



Old style poultry 
keeping. 




Page Ninety-four 



A good illustration of the especial point of this 
story has come to our notice. A young lady ot 
our acquaintance who had run down her health 
by too close application to office work in the city 
was ordered by her physician to eat two eggs 
each morning for her breakfast and take three 
eggs raw during the day. The difficulty of get- 
ting ''dependably fresh" eggs suggested that she 
keep a small flock of fowls herself, and have 
home-grown eggs. Gaining her parents' per- 
mission to use a few square feet of the back of 
their lot for the purpose, she bought a ''No- 
Yard" house, a flock of fifteen pullets and two 
bags of ready mixed feeds. The pullets laid 
splendidly all winter, not only giving her the 
fresh-laid eggs for her own use and a supply for 
the family, but she had a surplus to sell to the 
corner drug-store, w^here they sell for ten cents 
per dozen above the market price, and are used 
in egg-chocolate and other soft drinks. 

This worked out so well that she has continued 
each year, fattening and selling off the birds in 




Same lot with up- 
to-date methods and 
No- Yard houses. 



Page Ninety- five 



eH^i^^JvMI p°"'-T"v G^pE POST Mmfryyho 



August and September, and buying new pullets 
again in the late fall to lay heavily during the 
season of high prices for eggs. 

She pays her ten-year-old brother a small sum 
each week for doing the poultry work and says 
that she had not only achieved fresh-laid eggs 
for herself, but is making a good snug amount 
each year. 

We have no sympathy with the "get-rich- 
quick" stories of $io to $50 or $500 profit per 
hen in one year's time which are doing the 
rounds of the papers, solely for advertising pur- 
poses. We don't want our friends to get such 
greatly inflated figures into their minds, for they 
will be disappointed if they do. We do, how- 
ever, want them to know that they can reduce 
their family living expenses by a substantial sum, 
by utilizing the table and kitchen waste and a 
small space in the back yard, both of which are 
not now used because of lack of opportunity. 
You can easily clear from $2.00 to $5.00 profit 



The picture that 
comes to many 
minds when back 
yard poultry-keep- 
ing is mentioned. 




Page Ninety-six 



OPPORTUNITY 



per year per hen on whatever number you can 
care for in your back yard, and the small amount 
of time spent with them will prove a recreation 
rather than a burden. 

On a lot 50x50 feet in size there will be no dif- 
ficulty in realizing a profit of from $50 to $500 a 
year on an investment of from $50 to $300. The 
old style method of poultry-keeping meant a lot 
of unsightly "shacks" and tumble-down yards, 
unending labor, and with results far from certain. 

With our modern methods, of "no-yards" for 
the mature market egg birds and scientific feed- 
ing, the results are certain, the birds cannot get 
by without laying. 

These statements sound pretty strong, but we 
are sure of our position. 

Your garden will not suffer, in fact, both gar- 
den and lawn (if you have them) will be greatly 
improved by application of the droppings which 
are a most excellent fertilizer. The weeds from 
the garden, also the clippings from the lawn will 




g [J No-Yard system 
requires no male 
bird to disturb the 
neighborhood. It 
leaves ample space 
for a nice garden. 



Page Ninety-seven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



The young lady 
whose parents 
owned this estate 
was ordered by the 
physician to take 
fresh eggs daily. 



be greatly relished by the birds in confinement 
and less grain food will be eaten by them if they 
have the green food. 

We well know that if these facts were real- 
ized by our friends more than double the poul- 
try would be profitably kept and the family liv- 
ing expenses appreciably reduced. It takes 
years, however, to impress some of the most sim- 
ple truths upon the minds of the doubters, mean- 
while, the demand for eggs and poultry meat 
continues to increase much faster than the sup- 
ply. Prices continue to soar and our doubting 
friends continue to rail at the beef trust, over- 
looking the fact that they have right at hand a 
powerful weapon against that organization, viz : 
shutting off a part of the trust's market by pro- 
ducing their own meat and eggs and by sup- 
plying their friends and neighbors. By so much 
they can decrease the trust's sales, and put a 
handsome profit in their own pockets. 

So let the consumer of eggs and poultry be- 




Page Ninety- eight 



health' 



OPPORTUNITY 



come first the producer. There is money to be 
made, health to be gained and recreation ana 
happiness will go hand in hand. While held in 
the city by the demands of the present day civ- 
ilization, the back-to-the-farm yearning may be 
all but realized in the little back yard flock of 
poultry. 




A poultry house 
was substituted for 
the unsightly view 
of a neighbor's back 
yard, and now fresh 
eggs are a regular 
morning delicacy 
for all the family. 



Page Ninety-nine 




Thk success or failure of any poultry keeping 
undertaking really rests upon the skill of the 
feeder, for successful poultry keeping is only 
dependent upon two things, keeping the birds 
healthy and feeding them properly. We have 
shown the proper methods of housing and gen- 
eral care in other chapters and will try to give 
the outline of a safe feeding system or plan that 
will enable all to gain success with their birds. 

One of the first principles to be always remem- 
bered is that your results are dependent upon 
liberal feeding and by liberal feeding we mean 
feeding all the birds can be coaxed to eat of the 
right materials, and we must consider feed as 
material and egg, poultry and breeding stock as 
the finished products. 

There is no question that a newly hatched 
chicken is a delicate and tender object, keenly 
sensitive to neglect, but particularly sensitive to 
improper food. Properly fed and surrotmded 
with half way right conditions as to temperature 
and air, he .g^oes ahead at a wonderful rate — but 
improperly fed, he stands still and dies. 

Practically speaking, his life horoscope is de- 
Page One Hundred One 




make the 



W. 



vcy 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



i^' 



C 



No cook. 

needeJ 








cided in the first ten days to three weeks of his 
existence. In this length of time, if he is a 
good husky fellow,, he will eat from three to 
four cents' worth of feed. 

If the chickens consumed the chick feed dur- 
ing the first month in their lives in the quan- 
tities they use when from three to five months 
of age, there might be a little excuse for look- 
ing for inexpensive rations, provided it did not 
imperil the lives of the youngsters, but when 
we consider that a pound of the best chick feed 
will put a chicken beyond the danger period, 
or up to three weeks of age, what excuse is 
there for the saving of a quarter of a cent a 
pound when it endangers the entire season's crop 
of producers? Really a poultryman would be 
better oflF in many instances if he paid double 
the price for the best chick feed, in preference 
to the gift of many of the feeds on the market. 

Every experienced poultryman realizes that 
the first two or three weeks is the crucial period 

in the lives of his chickens. 

r^^ A-> rv P^ Upon the health and thrift 



^nI^V)"^ '^.^^ \\ J of the chickens during these 
X ^. f\/ Cp '& C^ few weeks depend the pro- 
^^ W ^' h0 ^ fits of the whole season, 

and of the year's business. 
An all grain or vegetable diet is not natural 
to any age of poultry and it has been found 
highly beneficial to young chickens to combine 
a small amount of dried codfish or meat and 
add it to the cracked grains and seeds used in 
making up the chick feed ration. Certain prep- 

Page One Hundred Two 



FEEDING 



arations of codfish being used after having been 
put through a special preparatory process that 
eHminates all the fat, it supplies the newly 
hatched birds at the crucial age when most 
needed with animal protein, without the animal 
fat. 

The yolk of the eggs not being fully absorbed 
until the chickens are ten days old and consist- 
ing largely of carbo-hydrates, furnishes all the 
materials of a fatty nature that is desirable. 
Thus if we add the commercial meat scraps con- 
taining more or less fat, there is very sure to 
be trouble, while in shredded codfish properly 
prepared not an atom of fat remains. We thus 
furnish just what the rapidly developing bodies 
require without any white diarrhoea — so fatal 
in some sections. 

Cooking the food for chickens or grown poul- 
try, only serves to render the starchy parts of 
the feed more digestible, but by so doing, throws 
the feeds out of balance, and while the chicks 
apparently thrive better for a few days, they 
later receive a set 



Nature 
piit a 

Cook, r 
inside d 

ikm 






back that leaves ^^'^ ^ ^.^ ^>, 
them not so far i^^<i^.^^J,-^^' ^^ 
ahead as the birds '^^ >'~J ^ 
fed on raw foods 
from the start. 

With so much of our entire season's work and 
profits depending upon the chickens, realizing 
that they are going to be worth from one to two 
dollars each when grown, and that after they are 
three weeks of age very little mortality ensues — 




Page One Hundred Three 



m^k.:m 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



x^ ^ ^ 



it would seem folly to consider any feed for 

them but the BEST and most nourishing rations. 

A coarser chick feed may be fed after the 

chicks reach three weeks of age, being fed in 

connection with Growing Feed. If the very 

TL /■ J j^ Tv highest perfection of development is desired 

jnCiirv5l JU V^yS ^-^j^ ^^^^ ^^-j.^^^ ^j^^ alternate feeds of the 

decide my "yic best fine chick and of a coarser chick feed 
^ — V until the birds are eight weeks of age. Keep 
S\^^ the Growing Feed continually before them. 
('if^ W\^ Remember that stuffing the birds to their limit, 
L>^ . yjj ~^ studying their habits and whims, all with the 
^^ idea of getting more food into them by increas- 
ing their early growing habits, is a successful 
poultryman's aim. If you get a two-pound 
chicken at eight weeks of age, instead of ten or 
twelve weeks' time, you have gained from one 
to two weeks' feed, and the chances are from 
five to ten cents per pound in the selling value, 
as the market declines very rapidly during the 
spring and early summer months, and if your 
chickens are not in the market any earlier or 
better than the one thousand other poultrymen 
shipping to the same market you are not going 
to receive any better prices than they get. 

NINE-TKNTHS OF THE CHICKENS HATCHED DO 
NOT GET ENOUGH TO EAT. 

Why so many chickens are hatched, and so 
few really fed, is a great problem, but we think 
that the improper feeding and poor quality of 
unbalanced rations are largely responsible, for 
all will recognize the fact that most of the teach- 

Page One Hundred Four 




FEEDING 



ings of ten years ago, — and in many cases of to- 
day, — are to keep your chickens ''on edge", or 
hungry all the time. 

Your chickens should never be hungry, as 
the term is generally understood. HUNGRY 
BIRDS ARE NOT GROWING. 

Almost without exception in all other forms 
of bird and animal life the growing period is 
the fattening period of life. In other words, 
the birds or animals carry more fat on them 
during this than any other time of their lives, 
and in the face of this, the old teaching told 
us to ''keep them hungry." Is it any wonder 
that the hens did not lay, that the youngsters 
did not get to standard weight, or that poultry 
keeping did not pay? 

Hen-reared chickens, when running at large 
with the mother hen, are fed a continuous 
stream of bugs, worms, grains, seeds and 
grasshoppers, from daylight to dark. There 
is no interval of fasting; only brief warm-up 
recesses or naps ; the entire day is spent in 
trying to "fill up." The feeding system we 
advocate gives these same conditions. After _-, 

the chickens are ten days to two weeks old Chdtl^C. Ol 
provide them with ground Growing Feed which 
furnishes them with a continuous ration which 
should be made up of a happy combination of 
the strongest and richest grains and meat food 
ground together in the most appetizing form for 
the chickens to so please their palates that they 
will stufif themselves from one week's end to the 
other, and grow evenly and rapidly into highly 

Page One Hundred Five 




Diet 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




YES 



? 



? 



NO 



S8 




developed pullets, cockerels, or capons, in one- 
third less time than they would under any other 
system. 

Upon a properly balanced Growing Feed 
ration, cockerels reach ten and twelve po-unds 
weight in six months, thus representing a 
growth in each day of their lives equal to two- 
thirds of their entire weight when hatched into 
this cold, hard world. 

To make this growth, conditions must be right, 
and the feed must be rich, abundant, and always 
within reach. It must also be present in a form 
that is not only palatable to the growing chick- 
ens, but in such form as will digest most eco- 
nomically and completely. Now it is easy to see 
that wet food cannot be kept before them con- 
stantly and remain sweet. 

Poultry rations that have been in use in the 
past for growing stock are too restricted, and 
do not fully nourish all parts of the rapidly 
growing system, and some of the chickens break 
down at all ages. 

Fanciers recognize as an almost universal fact 
that late hatches or summer chickens are the 
best colored and the best formed of any of 
their broods, and their problem has been get- 
ting them to standard size in season for the 
winter shows. 

This rapid growth and full development is 
just what a properly prepared Growing Feed 
will do, giving a wide variety to feed upon, and 
so fully nourishing every part of the growing 
stock that they are always in good form and 

Page One Hundred Six 



msT^^m 



FEEDING 



}^^jm^h^um 



well feathered with unlimited stamina that will 
reproduce itself in next season's breeding pen 
with even better and greater strength. 

Added to this is the big item of saved labor 
over the expenditure of time in preparing and 
"serving" wet mash mixtures. 

This enormous saving of time and food is not 
at the expense of any vital function, but rather 
the reverse, for the stock will rapidly increase 
in strength and vitality under this treatment, and 
after you try it a season you will find your old 
stock one to two pounds heavier, and your pul- 
lets laying a month earlier. 

Give your chickens a chance to show you how 
skillfully you did your mating last season, and 
the only way you can do so, is to feed them to 
the limit. 

Remember, full fed chickens are paying chicks. 

The Scratch Feed should be compounded to 
balance the Egg Feed and should always be very 
carefully screened and composed of a combina- 
tion of the very best and sweetest grains and 
seeds, which pleases the taste of the hen and at 
the same time keeps her everlastingly scratching. 
The exercise she gets in this way increases her 
activity, develops the muscles and blood vessels, 
helps digestion and circulation, reddens the comb, 
and assists in a general way to strengthen all the 
functions of the body. A scratching hen is like 
a whistling boy or a singing girl — always hap- 
py, and generally busy. We believe in giving 
poultry plenty to do. 

A variety of grains more fully nourishes the 

Page One Hundred Seven 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 



ifie hens during 
chcrri feeding 
Hour/. 




many complicated parts of the bird's anatomy, 
and results in larger and stronger fowl with in- 
creased vitality. When confined to a restricted 
ration, young stock do not fill out as well; are 
more subject to disease, and fail to reach the 
size that they would attain if fed liberally upon 
a carefully balanced mixture. Laying hens are 
more subject to disease, acquire pernicious hab- 
its of egg eating, feather pulling, etc., simply as 
a result of the natural craving of an appetite un- 
satisfied. Given a carefully balanced ration, they 
acquire none of these bad habits and show their 
appreciation in full baskets of fertile eggs 
throughout the year. 

For Instance, buckwheat in itself is one of the 
best egg producers on the entire list of grains, 
but if fed to excess, and without other grains to 
counteract the tendency, produces eggs with very 
pale yolks. 

Wheat is an excellent egg producer, but fed 
too freely reduces the strength of the germs and 
vitality of the chickens hatched. 

Nothing but long experience with the birds 
gives this information, and makes it possible to 
counteract the weak features of each ingredient 
with the strong features in some other material. 

An egg is the product of a very wonderfully 
developed and sensitive organism, containing the 
nucleus of undeveloped germs for generations 
upon generations to come. This action of the 
generative organs is a very heavy drain upon 
the hen's system; nothing parallels it in Nature. 
A milch cow is an approach, but she is not draw- 

Page One Hundred Eight 



FEEDING 



ing on her reproductive organs as often as in na- 
ture, but the hen has, by man's careful manipula- 
tion, increased her reproductive capacity many 
times since becoming a servant of mankind. 

This saps her vitality and we can only hope 
to keep her wonderfully made machinery in op- 
eration without interruption or breakdown by 
placing within her reach an abundance of such 
food as she likes, without having any ''stop- 
watch" on her to tell when she has eaten enough. 

Instead of being "used up" with that tired 
feeling in the spring season when we want 
strong eggs for hatching purposes, she is stead- 
ily producing eggs that hatch well, and chickens 
that live well. She skips all the ailments and 
diseases caused by improper feeding, and con- 
tinues to contribute to the prosperity of her own- 
er for the full twelve months of the year. 

Scratch Feeds are usually made the dump of 
refuse grains that cannot be sold in the open 
market, and when making comparisons with 
prices of feed keep in mind that every kernel 
of grain in your mixture should be sweet, and 
that they contain no sweepings or weed seed. 

For the best results in egg production we rec- 
ommend one or two Feeders containing Egg 
Feed constantly before the birds, and a feed 
of Scratch Feed in litter an hour or two be- 
fore roost time at night. This gives an oppor- 
tunity to fill up at the time of day when Nature 
warns them that they need a full crop to last 
them until morning. They do not have a chance 
to gorge themselves early in the day and then 




15 riEDlNG H0UP5 
IN JUMMEP 
AGAINST 




9 nzdm Houpj 

IN V/IKTEl? 



Page One Hundred Nine 



^^^^J r M PO^^TRY 



GUIDE POST 





Pe^u]ij m tile 

rather tlian 
beauty of 

bird , are what 
we are 5eeJ<jria 



dope around, but are always on the move be- 
tween feed hopper and litter looking for some 
of last evening's remnants, and have no time to 
line up in the sunlight as wet-mash fed hens are 
prone to do on a cold winter day after a hot 
mash in the morning. 

Years ago a wise old poultryman said, 
''There's more in the feed than in the breed," 
and he was certainly right. We would say that 
it is all in the feed. Perhaps that would be too 
strong a statement, but certainly all will admit 
that the breed counts for very little, or nothing, 
without the feed. The best bred hens cannot — 
and will not — lay if not fed, and the poorest 
scrub will lay quite plentifully if properly fed. 
Feed has more to do with the paying end of a 
poultry plant than anything else, and the only 
feed that is cheap is the feed that produces 
results. 

A properly compounded Egg Feed always 
will produce eggs at a lower cost per hen than 
any other feed. After carefully experimenting 
for years we have demonstrated that egg eat- 
ing, feather pulling, going broody, getting over- 
fat, and "going light" may be — and are — largely 
overcome by its use. 

These points should be given constant and 
careful consideration, and the requirements fol- 
lowed out regardless of the cost of the proper 
materials. 

A fluctuating grain market does not mean that 
high priced ingredients necessary to the proper 
balancing of feeds be left out of these mixtures ; 

Page One Hundred Ten 



FEEDING 



this would be poor economy. A proper Egg 
Feed should give you the results you are look- 
ing for every day in the year. 

The proper blending of ingredients is as im- 
portant as to have the proper materials. Feed- 
ing your birds the right materials in the wrong 
proportions will just as surely throw them out 
of condition, resulting in a train of ill success, 
infertile eggs, weak chickens and low vitality 
among your stock, as feeding the wrong mate- 
rials. 

In purchasing feeds, watch your protein analy- 
sis. A low protein feed at a low price costs 
you more per feeding value than a high protein 
feed at a much higher price, and we emphasize, 
—THIS PROTEIN MUST BE ANIMAL 
PROTEIN; NOT VBGBTABLB PROTEIN. 

Formulas have been put out by various exper- 
iment stations embodying the use of vegetable 
protein in combination with animal protein, 
thereby lessening the cost over some rations 
which depend upon animal protein altogether. 
These vegetable protein rations, while good, will 
not maintain the highest volume of efficiency, 
nor will they maintain the birds in the best of 
health. In confirmation of this we would refer 
you to the report of the Massachusetts Agri- v*^ 
cultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 122, 
March 1908. 

'* 'For laying hens the rations con- 
taining animal food proved superior to 
others in w^hich all the organic matter 
was derived from vegetable sources, 




Page One Hundred Eleven 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




Cut out tk bt 
Jt vSpclb TmUDLE 



***** It appears also that 
while a cheaper vegetable food ration 
can sometimes be made to equal or sur- 
pass in efficiency a ration containing 
animal food by supplementing it with 
suitable mineral matter, there are plain 
limitations to its economical use. For 
laying hens, some animal food appears 
necessary for continued good results.' 
Judging from our own results and 
from those obtained by Wheeler, it 
seems safe to conclude that animal 
albuminoids as measured by produc- 
tion possess a much higher degree of 
efficiency than those derived from vege- 
table materials." 
Start your pullets on a ration of Growing 
Feed and Egg Feed, half of each, when they 
are about one month from laying, dropping the 
Growing Feed as they begin to lay. Keep the 
feed in one or more hoppers, boxes or other con- 
trivances, in light, easily accessible parts of the 
pen, and do not let them go empty. Feed a lib- 
eral quantity of Scratch Feed about an hour 
before they go to roost in litter, inducing them 
to scratch freely. Encourage them to eat liber- 
ally of the Egg Feed, at least as much in bulk 
as of the Scratch Feed, cutting down the Scratch 
Feed until this is brought about, but getting 
every ounce of feed into them you can, and 
your egg basket will show the results we all look 
for. Egg Feed and Scratch Feed make a com- 
plete balanced ration, but if you have cabbage or 

Page One Hundred Twelve 



£ 



clover it is well enough to feed it, although the 
Dry-Mash itself should contain a liberal amount 
of Alfalfa. Simply furnish shells, grit, and an 
ample supply of water in addition. 

In the newer settled portions of the country 
we find a disposition to relax all mash feeding as 
soon as the grass comes in the spring, the owners 
knowing that the hens always lay at this season 
of the year anyway. 

They overlook the fact that the hens now lay 
by Nature's bidding and in many instances take 
it out of their bodies in reducing their fat, de- 
pending upon their resting period in raising a 
flock of chickens to restore them to natural 
weight. 

Now the owner perhaps does not wish to have 
them incubate and "breaks them up" and starts 
them laying again, they lay a short litter and 
start setting again. When broken up a second 
time they are very likely to hold off from laying 
for a considerable time, as not being fed upon 
a rich ration they have little incentive to lay and 
if running at large they are too busy seeking 
grasshoppers and insects to think much of laying. 

If the owners of these birds would keep up 
their winter feeding right through the year, they 
would get heavy egg records all summer and 
fall and double their profits over their present 
system. Hens are gluttons, they produce from 
five to ten times their weight each year in eggs 
if fed properly. Your profits depend upon their 
eating. Increase your profits by increasing the 
eating process. 

Page One Hundred Thirteen 




Eg^5 steadily 
increasing 
in price. 



1^ 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



s^iE 




To get the maximum number of eggs from 
the number of birds, confine them in small lots 
of from 15 to 30, allowing them three or four 
square feet floor space to each bird. See that 
they get a liberal amount of pure air through 
one opening in the south side at all times, night 
and day, winter and summer. Do not let them 
out of the house from the time they go into it 
in the fall until they go to market the next fall. 
Feed as directed above and you will get more 
'eggs than ever before. 

We cannot tell you why, and do not attempt 

to reason it out. We can only state that we have 

found more eggs and at a less cost result when 

no yard was used with this system of feeding. 

This very materially reduces the expense of con- 

^structing and maintaining a poultry plant, leaves 

Ifl much more room for the growing chickens, or 

doubles the number of birds kept on an acre of 

Inland, and works a wonderful advantage when the 

pullets are bought each season, and we have only 

" words of praise for the system. 

Think of the labor saved ! Think of the cap- 
ital saved ! Think of the worry saved ! One 
man's labor alone will care for 2,500 birds on 
this system. If you have an empty house or two, 
buy a lot of mixed pullets, try out this system, 
and tell us if you have not opened a way to com- 
mercial poultry keeping on a business basis. 



Page One Hundred Fourteen 




^Thousands of families v^ould start keeping 
poultry if they realized how simple the No- 
Yard system really is. 

When poultry is suggested they immediately 
think of all the detail and trouble incident to 
raising chickens, — the annoyance of the crowing 
of the cocks, the unsightly back yard, and the 
neighbors' protests in general. 

It is our purpose here to show that not only 
can poultry be kept in a neat and tidy manner, 
but that the original outlay may be almost noth- 
ing if one is a little handy with tools and has 
the time to put into the construction of houses 
out of boxes or waste lumber. 

Pages and volumes of matter have been writ- 
ten regarding shape, sizes and styles of poultry 
houses, and the subject is well worthy of all the 
attention paid to it. The success or failure of 
many plants is determined at the outset by the 
style of building adopted. 

Some waiters and practical poultrymen advo- 
cate and use the long building, claiming economy 
in construction cost, and of labor in operating. 

We will concede the slight saving in the cost 

Page One Hundred Seventeen 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 




Notliii9do[n9r 
on the 



of construction, but when considered as a twelve 
months' proposition, we know that houses on the 
colony plan will give much better returns on the 
capital invested. 

We must consider the bird's comfort twelve 
months in the year, and what would seemingly 
be best for a blowy January day would be stifling 
on a hot day in July. 

What would serve to the best purposes the 

comfort of the bird in August would be alto- 

N^ gether too exposed in December. Windows 

are out of the question, as they make a very 

i[ hot building when the sun is shining and equally 

_ cold quarters after dark, bringing two extremes 

II I I of temperature during a single day, a shock no 

"^^ bird can stand, and keep in condition. 

We have tried about every size, style and type 
of building that has been advocated, and have 
found that the small portable building brings the 
most uniform success to all users. 

These houses make the birds comfortable in 
the hottest day in summer, or the coldest day in 
winter, and require practically no attention. 

Poultry, and in fact everything wearing feath- 
ers, are of course, creatures of the air, and the 
importance of right air conditions surrounding 
the birds is recognized as of paramount import- 
ance in keeping the birds in health. 

Poultry in health, properly fed, produce re- 
markable results ; in fact, a hen working along 
smoothly is the greatest producer In the animal 
kingdom. 

This may seem a broad statement, but think 



Page One Hundred Eighteen 



of it ! In twelve months' time she will produce 
from five to ten times her weight in eggs, and 
that means practically five to ten times her 
weight in flesh. 

Thus, our study must be to maintain her 
henship in the most perfect health. 

The best way to cure sickness is to prevent 
it. Nine-tenths of really bad poultry diseases 
originate from bad air, and can all be prevented 
by right air conditions. 

Your birds wall never have influenza, colds, 
roup, catarrh, canker or chicken pox if always 
Surrounded with proper air. 

Now to produce the right air conditions we 
jmust carefully study the shape and diagram of 
lour house. 

The main part to consider is that one-third 
of the south side shall be open to the weather in 
all climates and under all conditions, and that 
the opening be covered with one-inch wire net- 
ting on the front 
of the door, and 
that the opening 
be equally distant 
from each side of 
the pen and from 
the roof and bot- 
tom of the pen. 

This prevents the whirlpooling of the air in 
the house, which would occur if the opening 
were next to one side of the pen and the wind 
was blowing against the front of the house from 
an angle. 







Page One Hundred Nineteen 



HOUSING 



As to the exact form of the house, almost any 
size or plan seems efficient so long as the south 
side opening is the only one in the pen, and is as 
described. 

Set the building up on posts when it arrives, 
or if the ground is frozen too hard to make it 
possible to dig post holes, simply set it on four 
corner stones or wooden blocks, scraping off the 
snow and filling the house in six inches to a foot 
above the bottom edge of the siding with fairly 
dry sand or gravel. If the ground is not frozen, 
set up on four corner posts, fill in with earth and 
gravel, and bank up the outside two or three 
inches above the lower edge of the house. Put 
six inches to a foot of good litter on top of the 
sand or gravel. Leave the cloth door open every 
day, unless the storm is coming from the south, 
(assuming that your building faces the south), 
and you are ready for your live stock. 

Improper housing is one of the things that fig- 
ures strongly against profitable poultry. 

In climates as severe as New England we rec- 
ommend that not less than one-third of the entire 
south surface of the house be constructed of wire 
only, with a light frame covered with cheese 
cloth or waterproof sheeting, for use on nights 
when the temperature ranges below zero ; or for 
use during the driving storms when the house 
is very narrow so that storms beat in onto the 
birds on their roosts. At other times, day and 
night, cloth doors should be kept fastened back, 
so as to give a free circulation of air. 

For climates less severe than New England, 



uiopall 



Lop 



drd\j^}is 




LITTER 
] FOOT THICK 

1 FOOT cFEAPTH 



Page One Hundred Twenty-one 



:^^n,^^m^ 


POULTRY GUIDE POST 


^^^^^S^^ 



ranging to summer conditions, we should modify 
this plan only by increasing the amount of wire 
on the south side. 




Co^hr to 







For southern states, California and other 

Hole over j^ii(^ climates of the same character, we 

should recommend that the entire south 

side of the building be constructed of wire 

only, without any cloth whatever. 

We should aim to err in the direction of 
always giving the birds more air, if the 
slightest doubt remains in our minds on 
that point. This method of housing will 
make a world of difference in the health of 
your flock. 

We especially recommend the " No- 
Yard" house shown on page 114. 

This "No- Yard" poultry house is 6 feet 
wide, 8 feet deep, 63^^ feet high at the 
front and 4 feet high at the back. The 
back and two sides are built of heavy, 
high-grade matched flooring, tongued and 
grooved and solidly put together so that it 
is impossible for air to enter at any point. 
The front is built of the same material and 
has two doors opening in opposite direc- 
tions, one inside and the other outside. 
The inner door is covered with one-inch 
galvanized diamond-mesh wire that serves 
Puttitio in roof sup^oA^. to confine the hens to the house and at the 
^fier y>\d3 o^ piano same time exclude objectionable intruders. 
The outer door is covered with water- 
proof cloth, and will be found necessary only in 
case of a severe storm, when it will effectually 




Putting on "tfie siJ^ 
^nd roaC 




Page One Hundred Twenty-two 



HOUSING 



exclude the rain or snow and at the same time 
permit a free circulation of pure air. The root 
is constructed of heavy one-inch matched lum- 
ber, reinforced around the four sides and 
down the center by wide strips of the same 
material. The entire roof is covered by 
heavy No. 27 galvanized steel that makes it 
impervious to rain, snow and wind. When 
the house is "set-up" it is tightly held to- 
gether by galvanized steel corner pieces and 
with the overhanging edges of the roof it 
is ''absolutely waterproof." 

The illustration of the interior shows two 
heavy roosts six feet long complete with a 
dropping board. The location of these roosts 
makes it absolutely impossible for draughts 
to strike the fowl from any direction. The 
laying box hung on the side has three com- 
partments that are arranged in the most 
practical manner, that permit the hens to 
lay their eggs in comfort. The roosts, drop- 
ping board and laying box are all easily re- 
moved for cleansing. 

It will be noted that the arrangement of 
the interior fixtures in this house leaves the 
entire floor space at the disposal of the hens 
for scratching and allows for the accom- 
modation of its maximum capacity. 

Such a house can be purchased and shipped 
''knocked-down" of the supply houses at a 
price ranging from $25.00 to $30.00, or if 
second-hand lumber can be had at reason- 
able prices the same building can be put up 




TtiiJ jncxpdiuiVo 

Culfit csn bo 
mdc/ ailraciWcy. 



Page One Hundred Twenty-three 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 



^ 



<K 




at from eight to fifteen dollars, using roofing 
paper for covering the cracks in the sides, back 
and roof. 

Of course, this price does not include the 
labor, as we are assuming that the reader is to 
build it himself. 

A very satisfactory and acceptable house may 
be improvised from a crockery barrel by sawing 
ofif about three of the staves, as illiistrated, a 
door put in place, and water and feed provided. 

This should not cost over 50c. to $1.00, and 
makes quite a satisfactory residence for a fam- 
ily of five pullets, and you can safely count on 
three or five eggs per day with 
half the rations coming from the 
waste of the table. 



IZft. 



~i ^ Another very popular and in- 
expensive house can be made of 
a piano box and when completed 
makes a house for six to eight 
pullets, and will not cost over $3.00 to $4.00. 
We should prefer the houses without floors, 
and built on this plan there will be enough lumber 
in the original box to build t^e entire building. 
Make the most of the rbom by building 
shelves eighteen inches by two feet in width, 
about two feet above the height of the litter on 
the floor. Keep water dishes, nests, feed dishes 
and shell and grit boxes on these shelves, thus 
giving every bit of floor space to the birds to 
scratch over. 

The same general interior plan can be pre- 
served and a more imposing outside struc- 

Paqe One Hundred Twenty-four 



^^:^^t™ 



HOUSING 



w. w^^/m 




Hinged (joor— - 
io remade eq<^ 



ture constructed on 
the lines shown on 
page — . This build- 
ing can be varied in 
every way to match 
y the architecture of 
the main building. 
Painted and sur- 
rounded with shrub- 
bery or quick grow- 
ing vines it usually 
to the charm of sub- 
urban life. 

Then again some w^ould- 
be poultrymen think of the 
long building they see on the large poultry 
farms, and really keep out of the business 
because of the unsightliness of the long, low 
buildings, unrelieved by any change or variation 
in design. 

The "No- Yard" plan can readily be made to 
fit the landscape architect's scheme by grouping 
the buildings upon the rises among the trees in 
such a manner as is shown on page 120. 

If you are determined to build a long house, 
we urge that you build it with absolutely no 
doors between pens, with tight board partitions 
running to the roof, and made as tight as build- 
ing paper and boards can make them, the pens 
to be cared for entirely from the front just as 
in the "No- Yard" house. 

Another very good plan is a house ten by 
twelve feet in size for thirty or forty birds. 

Page One Hundred Twenty-five 



POULTRY GUIDE POST 




This house will cost from $25.00 to $50.00 and 
is more adapted to poultry farms than to back 
yards, as its increased size renders it rather a 
permanent building, while the smaller ones can 
be easily constructed on the portable plan. 

From the foregoing plans it would seem that 
almost anybody who really wants to keep poul- 
try, who is interested in keeping the cost of 
living down, might start now. The business is 
simplicity itself when the No-Yard plan is 
adopted. 

This method of housing and caring for the 
birds opens up the possibilities of the business. 
In the case of the farmer's boy desiring more 
spending money, he can build a house in most 
any out-of-the-way spot, provided the land is 
dry, and he never need worry about the hens 
getting out of their yard and into the garden 
or doing other mischief while he is away at 
school. By increasing the number kept, he can 
make enough money to take him through col- 
lege, at the same time learning principles of 
business that will prove of inestimable value 
to him in later life. 
For the farmer, desiring to make use of every 
ounce of fertilizer and every foot of space upon 
his farm, this system appeals most strongly; in 
fact, it is the only system that gives him absolute 
control over the birds ; preserves all the fertiliz- 
ing value of the droppings, and enables him to 
make use of his land to the best advantage. He 
will find that if he invests $100, $500, or $1,000 
in poultry and poultry building, follows the sim- 

Paqe One Hundred Twenty-six 



HOUSING 



pie suggestions in this book, it will return him 
more profit than four times the money invested 
in any other branch of farm work and his re- 
turns are immediate and continuous. 

The housewife also may provide herself and 
home with many luxuries and spending money, 
rendering herself in a measure independent of 
the head of the house. The business will be 
found particularly adapted to w^omen desiring 
to retain their independence, or those on whom 
the burden of life rests heavily with others de- 
pendent upon them. The maternal instinct, 
prominent in w^omen, and practically unknown 
to men, makes them much more successful in 
rearing chickens, and we must 
invariably take off our hats to 
them in this line. 

Back-yard poultry keepers have 
a great advantage in some ways 
over the more fortunate farmers 
that are farther away from mar- 
ket. We have frequently noticed 
that there is a constantly in- 
creasing demand for strictly fresh eggs, and the 
man or woman who takes up poultry keeping in 
the thickly settled communities may rest assured 
that the surplus eggs he has to dispose of will 
bring from 5 to 25 cents more per dozen than 
the wholesale prices. 

With the "No- Yard System" these back yard 
and vacant lot plants are becoming much more 
common, as by this system no unsightly bare 
spot of land is left to mar the landscape. 

Page One Hundred Twenty-seven 




POULTRY GUIDE POST 



o 




No chickens being raised, no male birds are 
kept and the neighbors have no complaint to 
make of his early crowing. 

It will be found in most cases that the table 
waste from an ordinary family will furnish 
nearly one-half the living for a dozen hens, and 
the waste and our feeds make an ideal com- 
bination for full egg production. 

With the premium the neighbors so willingly 
pay for eggs "right out of the 
nest" and this saving in the 
feed cost, we are safe in saying 
that from $2.00 to $4.00 profit 
can be realized on each laying 
^ pullet. 

Not only are the profits assured, but the dif- 
ference in flavor between the eggs gathered daily 
and the eggs to be obtained from the store will 
more than repay the care of the flock. 

There is hardly a good-sized lot on which the 
owner or tenant may not make a profit of from 
$25 to $200 per year with a few minutes' time, 
night and morning, devoted to poultry keeping. 



Page One Hundred Twenty-eight 




We find there has been some confusion in the 
minds of readers and the poultry pubHc regard- 
ing the advocacy of no yards for poultry. 

We decidedly recommend large runs and free 
range for growing stock and breeding stock 
wherever possible, but with birds from which no 
stock is to be perpetuated — being used for the 
production of table eggs only, — the No-Yard 
System will be found to give much heavier egg 
yields and to require the minimum of care, room 
and expense. 

Breeding stock should not only have outdoor 
exercise 365 days in the year, but should have 
good sized yards and a much smaller number of 
females to the male than is usually provided 
throughout the country. 

This system of feeding, housing, brooding and 
rearing has made success for thousands of poul- 
try plants, and will for you if you will follow 
directions exactly. Do not, however, use a part 
of this system and expect best results. Use the 
whole system and be sure of results. 

Do not institute into your plant a part of the 
system, mixing it with poultry paper suggestions, 
neighbors' advice and friends' criticisms. There 
is only one way to take a cold bath, — you cannot 
take it piece-meal; take it all over. Where this 
system is radically different from what you 



Hold 10 fc 
cxcjpod 




^^ 



Page One Hundred Thirty-one 



POULTRY GUIDE POST llCf'j^^^J^-^fcSS 







50^' 



WhdicT ycu believe 
it or -net, thu 

15 Q]]-ngiTL • 



have been practising, try it in a whole-hearted 
manner, just as we outline it, — in one or two 
flocks only if you wish to do so before you 
try it on the whole lot, — but when testing it, 
use it as outlined, and do not let the neighbors 
*'butt in." 

Results are sure when used as directed, but 
when diluted and twisted the very purpose lor 
which the strongest features were introduced 
may be frustrated. 

Do not attempt to test out a heatless brooder 
and put two chickens in it. Neither should you 
put in twenty-live chickens and then keep them 
behind a stove. Put twenty-five chickens in the 
brooder in an unheated room and then follow 
directions. 

Do not take your windows out of your house 
and then put them in again whenever it looks as 
though it was going to be a little bit cool, thereby 
forgetting the principles that fresh air is neces- 
sary all the time. 

Do not buy Egg Feed and feed it wet, or use 
inferior brands and mixtures of scratch feeds, 
thereby throwing the ration out of balance, scour- 
ing your birds, and otherwise putting them out 
of condition. 

Do not feed Growing Feed and hope to hasten 
the growth of your chickens by adding meat 
food. It should contain all the meat ration nec- 
essary for the best results. 

Do not have any windows in your breeding 
pen. Cheese cloth sheeting is much cheaper and 

Page One Hundred Thirty-two 



WW2^ 



DON'TS 



means dry, healthy quarters with Hve air around 
the stock at all times. 

Do not think that you can neglect your stock 
while it is growing, and get big, robust breeding 
stock by full feeding a month or so before lay- 
ing. 

Do not expect that you can milk your breeding 
stock with 50% daily ^gg yield from December 
to March, and then get good hatches of chickens 
that will live. 

Do not put ten, twelve, fifteen or twenty fe- 
males with a male and expect good hatches. 

Never put two ages of chickens together in any 
weather. 

Don't put two chickens together where you 
know you should put one, and don't hesitate to 
separate them now, not next week. 








- Never allow 



Page One Hundred Thirtv-three 



m 



